Iraq, aiming to award development rights for its West Qurna-1 oil field within two weeks, said Monday that ExxonMobil and LUKoil agreed with the country’s Oil Ministry on a fee for the project.
The two are willing to work on the field for $1.90 a barrel, Abdul Mahdy al-Ameedi, deputy director general of Iraq’s Petroleum Contracts and Licensing Directorate, said in Istanbul. France’s Total and China National Petroleum Corp. are also in negotiations to develop the field, he said.
“We are in mature and advanced talks with Exxon, LUKoil, Total and CNPC in the West Qurna-1 field,” al-Ameedi told reporters at the conference.
Al-Ameedi and other senior Iraqi oil officials were in Istanbul for a two-day meeting of oil companies to discuss potential offers for service contracts for 10 oil fields to be offered at a second round of auctions in December.
Five bids from 11 companies, including ExxonMobil and Total, were placed for the West Qurna-1 field during Iraq’s first postwar licensing round in June. None of them reached an agreement with Iraq, which told companies during the day that fees for that project should not exceed $1.90 a barrel.
LUKoil and ConocoPhillips had proposed a remuneration fee of $6.49 a barrel for the West Qurna-1 field, according to the June bidding results published by the Oil Ministry.
Iraq failed to secure successful bids for seven of the eight oil and gas deposits offered in June, with the exception of Rumaila, awarded to BP and CNPC. Last week, it said one of these outstanding contracts, for the Zubair oil field, would be granted to a group led by Eni.
(Bloomberg, Reuters)