BASRA, Iraq (AP) – It is almost morning and Zainab Amjad has been working all night on an oil rig in southern Iraq. She drops a sensor into the black depths of a well until sonar waves detect the presence of the crude oil that is fueling her country’s economy.
Elsewhere in the oil-rich province of Basra, Ayat Rawthan oversees the installation of large drill pipes. These will drill into Earth and send crucial data about rock formations to screens a few feet away that will decipher them.
The women, both 24, are just a handful who have avoided the boring office jobs typically assigned to female petroleum engineers in Iraq. Instead, they chose to become pioneers in the country’s oil industry, donning helmets to take on the grueling work on oil rigs.
They are part of a new generation of talented Iraqi women who are testing the boundaries imposed by their conservative communities. Their determination to find a job in a traditionally male-dominated industry is a striking example of how a burgeoning youth population is increasingly at odds with the deep-seated and conservative tribal traditions that reign in Iraq’s southern oil heartland.
The hours that Amjad and Rawthan spend in the oil fields are long and the weather is relentless. They are often asked what they do there – as a woman.
“They tell me that only men can withstand the environment in the field,” said Amjad, who spends six consecutive weeks on the oil rig. “If I gave up, I would prove them right.”
Iraq’s fortunes, both economic and political, tend to ebb and flow with the oil markets. Oil sales make up 90% of state revenue – and the vast majority of crude oil comes from the south. A price crash causes an economic crisis; a tree fills the state coffers. A healthy economy brings a degree of stability, while instability has often undermined the strength of the oil sector. Decades of wars, civil unrest and invasion have brought production to a halt.
After the low oil prices dragged down by the coronavirus pandemic and international disputes, Iraq is showing signs of recovery, exporting 2,868 million barrels per day at $ 53 per barrel in January, according to statistics from the Ministry of Oil.
For most Iraqis, the industry can be summed up with those numbers, but Amjad and Rawthan have a more detailed picture. Each well presents a number of challenges; some needed more pressure to pump, others loaded with poisonous gas. “Every field feels like you are going to a new country,” said Amjad.
Given the industry’s extraordinary importance to the economy, petrochemical programs in the country’s engineering schools are reserved for the highest graded students. Both women were in the top 5% of their graduation class at Basra University in 2018.
At school they were impressed by the drilling. For them it was a new world, with its own language: “spudding” was to start drilling, a “Christmas tree” was the top of a wellhead, and “dope” just meant fat.
Each working day, she plunges deep into the mysteries beneath the Earth’s crust, using tools to look at mineral and mud formations until the precious oil is found. “Like throwing a rock into the water and studying the ripples,” Rawthan explained.
To work in the field, Amjad, the daughter of two doctors, knew she needed to get a job with an international oil company – and to do that, she would have to stand out. State-owned companies ran a dead end; there she would be relegated to office work.
“In my spare time, during my vacations, days off, I booked workouts and signed up for any program I could,” said Amjad.
When China’s CPECC started looking for new hires, she was the obvious choice. Later, when Schlumberger from Texas was looking for wire line engineers, she seized the opportunity. The task requires her to determine how much oil can be extracted from a particular well. She passed one difficult exam after another to get to the final interview.
When asked if she was sure she could do the job, she said, “Hire me, look.”
Within two months, she swapped her green helmet for a glossy white one, signifying her status as a supervisor, no longer an intern – a month faster than usual.
Rawthan also knew she would have to work extra hard to succeed. Once, when her team had to perform a rare “siding” – drilling another bore besides the original – she stayed up all night.
“I haven’t slept for 24 hours, I wanted to understand the whole process, all the tools, from start to finish,” she said.
Rawthan now also works for Schlumberger, where she collects data from wells that are later used to determine the bore path. She wants to master drilling and the company is a world leader in service.
Relatives, friends and even teachers were discouraging: what about the hard physical work? The scorching heat of Basra? Living at the drilling site for months on end? What about the desert scorpions that roam the reservoirs at night?
“Often my professors and colleagues would laugh, ‘Sure, we’ll see you out there,’ telling me I couldn’t make it,” Rawthan said. “But this only pushed me harder.”
But their parents supported. Rawthan’s mother is a civil engineer and her father, the captain of an oil tanker who has often spent months at sea.
“They understand why this is my passion,” she said. She hopes to help form a union to bring together like-minded Iraqi women engineers. For now, none exists.
The work is not without danger. Protests outside oilfields led by angry local tribes and the unemployed can disrupt work and sometimes escalate into violence against oil workers. Every day they are faced with flares pointing to Iraq’s obvious oil wealth, others condemn state corruption, poor services and unemployment.
But the women are ready to take on these hardships. Amjad hardly has time to even think about it: it was 11 p.m. and she was needed at work again.
“Drilling never stops,” she said.