Iraq announced on Sunday that it had signed contracts with foreign oil licensing companies to drill new oil wells and reclaim dozens of producing fields in Kirkuk, Baghdad, Basra, Maysan and Nasiriyah.
These partnerships come within the framework of a long-term plan to increase oil production to eight million barrels per day at the end of 2027, which was announced by Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar last week.
It seems that these contracts may cut off a little doubt after doubts arose about the future of this vital sector, which is threatened by the turmoil of policies, the rampant corruption in the joints of the state, and the long-standing state of social and security instability that made Iraq a country that expelled investors in various sectors.
The local newspaper, “Al-Sabah”, quoted the director of the Iraqi Drilling Company affiliated with the Ministry of Oil, Bassem Abdul Karim, on Sunday that “the company is in the process of signing a contract to drill 37 oil wells in the Zubair oil field for the Italian company Eni, the main operator of the field in Basra Governorate, for a period of more than two years.”
He pointed out that Eni had recently delivered 14 oil wells and started drilling 3 new wells within a previous contract, bringing the total drilling contracts to about 54 wells in the giant field.
In the name of Abdul Karim: Drilling and reclamation of wells will take place in Baghdad, Basra, Maysan and Nasiriyah
Abdul Karim revealed that after entering into a competition with major foreign drilling companies to acquire a contract to drill 30 wells in the Rumaila field, west of Basra, the process was eventually transferred to the British oil company BP, stressing the company’s readiness to start drilling operations directly if its victory was announced.
Iraq is the second largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), with an average daily production in normal conditions of 4.6 million barrels per day.
The Ministry of Oil had signed a contract with the Chinese company Cinoc, the operator of the Bazarkan field in Maysan province, to drill 22 wells in partnership with the Chinese company Bohan, at a cost of up to 160 million dollars.
Earlier this month, the two parties ended negotiations in this regard, which lasted for two years, as they were affected by the repercussions of Covid-19.
The agreement with China’s CENOC to reclaim 150 wells in the Bazarkan field contains two phases, the first includes 71 wells and the second will be implemented later.
The Ministry of Oil is currently in Dhi Qar implementing a plan to drill 20 wells in the Nasiriyah field, with the participation of the American company Weatherford, which will enhance the strategy of escalating production and export capacity in the future by up to 60 thousand barrels per day.
It is estimated that the Nassiriya field contains about 4.4 billion barrels of crude oil from proven reserves.
Last January, Iraq concluded agreements with the French oil giant Total to set up four projects related to natural gas and solar energy, worth about $7 billion.
The country has gas reserves estimated at 13 trillion cubic feet, of which 700 million cubic feet are burned as a result of the lack of optimal investment over the past decades.
These were the details of the news Iraq signs new partnerships with Eni and BP to develop oil... for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at saudi24news and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.
