Foreign companies to develop Iraq oil fields

After years of war and insecurity Iraq is now awarding rights contracts to foreign oil companies to develop and revived its oil industry.

Iraq’s giant Majnoon oil field will be operated jointly by UK’s Shell and Malaysia’s Petronas oil companies.

From a current production of 46,000 barrels per day, giants Shell and Petronas have vowed to increase that output to 1.8 million barrels per day. Majnoon has an estimated reserve of 13 billion barrels of oil. This joint venture is said to receive a fee of $1.39 a barrel.

The bid to develop southern Iraq’s Halfaya’s oil field was won by group led by China’s CNPC that included France’s Total and again Malaysia’s Petronas.

Halfaya oil field has an estimated reserves of 4.1 billion barrels of oil where the consortium plans to produce 535,000 barrels per day once operational. It is said to be asking a fee of $1.40 per barrel of oil extracted.

[Via http://quierosaber.wordpress.com]