Basra governorate carries most of Iraq’s production, and almost all of it moves through classified areas: degassing stations spread across super-giant fields, the gas plants built to capture what used to be flared, a refinery on the Shatt al-Arab and the export terminals out in the Gulf. Production operators, inspection engineers and service crews spend their shifts inside that chain, and the IS-04Z1 is an Ex ib smartphone built for them. Certification is still running, so the offer today is a specification, a dated programme and a unit to try. Often searched for as an “explosion proof phone”, the IS-04Z1 uses intrinsic safety as its protection concept.
Launching Q4 2026 · IECEx certification and Iraqi conformity in progress
This is not a fenced industrial city. The classified areas are scattered over a very large area of flat ground: fields north and west of the city, gas processing beside them, refining and port industry to the south, and the loading terminals offshore. A device is usually specified once and then carried across several of those, under operators who each run their own technical review.
Three things decide equipment arguments in Basra more often than any specification line: the summer, the sourness of the crude, and how long a replacement takes to arrive.
Open plant south of the city holds its heat from morning to night, and a field round offers no shade. The ATEX marking target is II 2 G Ex ib IIC T4, and the temperature class is what an instrumentation engineer compares against the maximum surface temperature the classification allows.
Hydrogen sulphide at a degassing station is routine rather than exceptional, so personal detection is already on the belt. Bluetooth pairing keeps a gas detector and the handset working as one set instead of occupying both hands.
Airborne sand settles into every seam and every port. IP68 sealing is what determines whether a unit still works afterwards, and Zone 21 coverage matters where bulk and fertiliser handling sit beside the gas plots.
Between customs clearance, site access and camp rotation, a failed handset stays failed for weeks. A sealed body, rugged build and a 4,000 mAh cell are specified for that reality.
Field routes run across flat terrain where one manifold reads like the last one. Four-constellation GNSS attaches a real position to a photograph, which is the difference between a note and a work order.
International operating organisations write to IEC 60079 or the American code, and the state companies apply their own vendor registration on top. A published certificate and a full marking string travel across those reviews; an undocumented device is argued at every gate.
A route between wellheads, manifolds and a station produces a reading to record, a defect to photograph and a call to place, all of it done with a gas detector already on the belt. Collapsing those three jobs into one intrinsically safe handset shortens the sign-out sheet considerably.
Compression and fractionation built for associated gas recovery is dense, loud and firmly inside Zone 1. A handset that pairs with hearing protection and still records the photograph earns the space on the belt.
Headcount and permit traffic both climb steeply during a shutdown. Loading the work permit, the isolation record and the site directory onto one enrolled handset thins the queue that forms at the permit office before seven in the morning.
Terminal work sits in gas classification along its whole length, out where nothing is a short trip. A sealed device that survives spray, holds a call from a manifold platform and photographs a damaged hose closes the inspection in one visit.
Not yet. The IS-04Z1 is pre-launch, and IECEx, ATEX and the Iraqi conformity route are all still running ahead of the Q4 2026 launch. No unit goes into a classified area before the certificate covering it exists.
No figure is published. Until certification completes there is no list price and no committed delivery, and any supplier naming one for an uncertified Ex device is promising more than the paperwork supports. Pre-launch pricing is issued in writing against quantity, configuration and site.
Each operating organisation decides that through its own engineering and HSE review, and that review reads certificates rather than marketing. The IECEx Certificate of Conformity is the document it is built on, and vendor registration is being prepared with an Iraqi partner.
A regulated consignment has to arrive with a Certificate of Conformity issued under the COSQC programme, and the radio needs CMC type approval obtained through a licensed representative inside Iraq. The IECEx certificate is the technical evidence underneath both. None of them is granted yet.
Intrinsically safe, marked Ex ib. The two ideas are often confused: flameproof design, Ex d, accepts that ignition may happen and builds an enclosure strong enough to contain it, while intrinsic safety keeps the stored and available energy so low that ignition has nothing to work with. Marking target II 2 G Ex ib IIC T4.
That is the design intent. Bluetooth pairing with personal gas detectors is part of the specification, and the practical test is done during evaluation with the exact detector model your site issues rather than assumed from a datasheet.
Certification covers a sealed assembly, so any repair outside the approved route ends it, and that includes swapping a cell locally. Servicing therefore runs through SAMS and the Iraqi partner it is appointing, with spares intended to sit in the south so a replacement does not wait on a fresh import.
Tell us the site, the zone and gas group, and roughly how many handsets. The SAMS team replies by email with the datasheet and the certification schedule for Iraq. The IS-04Z1 is pre-launch and certification is in progress, so there is no list price yet; indicative pricing is issued in writing against a stated quantity and site.
Tell us the zone, gas group and operator. We will send the datasheet and the certification schedule for your market.
