BASRA, Iraq (AP) – It is almost dawn and Zainab Amjad has been awake all night working on an oil rig in southern Iraq. She lowers a sensor into the black depths of a fountain until sonar waves detect the presence of crude fueling her country’s economy.
Elsewhere in the oil-rich province of Basra, Ayat Rawthan oversees the assembly of large drill pipes. They will go to Earth and send crucial data about the rock formations on screens placed a few meters (feet) away that they will decipher.
The women, both 24, are among just a handful of people who avoided the sad office jobs usually handed out to women oil engineers in Iraq. Instead, they chose to become pioneers in the country’s oil industry, wearing hard hats to take on the exhausting work of the sites.
They are part of a new generation of talented Iraqi women who are testing the limits imposed by their conservative communities. Their determination to find employment in a historically male-dominated industry is a striking example of how a growing youth population is increasingly at odds with deep-rooted and conservative tribal traditions, prevalent in southern Iraq.
The hours that Amjad and Rawthan spend in the oil fields are long, and the weather is unforgiving. They are often asked what they do – as women – there.
“I tell myself that the field environment can only withstand men,” said Amjad, who spends six weeks together living at the facility. “If I gave up, I would be right.”
Iraq’s fortunes, both economic and political, tend to decline and flow into oil markets. Oil sales account for 90% of state revenue – and the vast majority of crude oil comes from the south. A collapse in prices is causing an economic crisis; a boom fuels state coffers. A healthy economy brings a measure of stability, while instability has often undermined the power of the oil sector. Decades of wars, civil unrest and invasions have stopped production.
Following low oil prices dragged down by the coronavirus pandemic and international disputes, Iraq is showing signs of recovery, with January exports reaching 2.888 million barrels per day, at $ 53 per barrel, according to Ministry of Petroleum statistics.
For most Iraqis, the industry can be summed up by these figures, but Amjad and Rawthan have a more granular view. Each fountain presents a set of challenges; some required more pressure to pump, others were loaded with poison gas. “Every field wants to go to a new country,” Amjad said.
Given the excessive importance of industry to the economy, petrochemical programs in engineering schools in the country are reserved for students with the highest grades. Both women were in the top 5% of the graduation class at Basra University in 2018.
At school they were amazed by the drilling. For them it was a new world, with their own language: “spudding” had to start drilling, a “Christmas tree” was the tip of a fountain head and “drug” meant only fat.
Every working day throws them deep into the mysterious affairs beneath the Earth’s crust, where they use tools to look at the formations of minerals and mud, until the precious oil is found. “Like throwing a rock into the water and studying the waves,” Rawthan explained.
To work in the field, Amjad, the daughter of two doctors, knew she had to get a job at an international oil company – and to do that, she would have to stand out. State-run enterprises were a dead end; there, she will be demoted to the office.
“In my free time, on holidays, days off, I booked trainings, I signed up for any program I could,” said Amjad.
When CPECC in China came looking for new employees, it was the obvious choice. Later, when Schlumberger, based in Texas, was looking for cable engineers, she jumped at the chance. The job asks him to determine how much oil can be recovered from a given well. He passed one difficult exam after another to reach the final interview.
Asked if she was sure she could do the job, she said, “Hire me, watch.”
In two months, she changed her green helmet to a bright white one, which means her status as a supervisor, she is no longer an intern – a month faster than typical.
And Rawthan knew he would have to work hard to succeed. Once, when her team had to make a rare “side path” – drilling another hole next to the original – she stayed awake all night.
“I didn’t sleep for 24 hours, I wanted to understand the whole process, all the tools, from beginning to end,” she said.
Rawthan now also works for Schlumberger, where he collects data from wells used to later determine the drilling path. She wants to master drilling, and the company is a global leader in services.
Relatives, friends and even teachers were discouraging: How about hard physical work? The scorching heat of Basra? Do you live at the installation site for months in a row? And the desert scorpions roaming the tanks at night?
“Many times my teachers and colleagues laughed, ‘Sure, see you there,’ telling me I wouldn’t make it,” Rawthan said. “But that just pushed me harder.”
However, their parents were supportive. Rawthan’s mother is a civil engineer and her father, the captain of an oil tanker that often spent months at sea.
“I understand why this is my passion,” she said. She hopes to help establish a union that brings together Iraqi engineers who share the same ideas. For now, it doesn’t exist.
Work is not without danger. Protests outside oil fields led by angry and unemployed local tribes can disrupt work and sometimes turn into violence against oil workers. Faced every day with stacks of fire that indicate the obvious wealth of oil in Iraq, others denounce state corruption, poor service delivery and lack of jobs.
But women are willing to take on these hardships. Amjad barely has time to consider them: it was 11 pm and she was needed at work.
“Drilling never stops,” she said.