Jabbar A. Allibi and Vagit Alekperov discussed on October 10, 2016, in Baghdad the mutual cooperation and opening new work horizons in the oil & gas sector.
Mr. Allibi said that the ministry gives a big attention to the international companies work to develop the big oil fields such as the work of Lukoil in (West Qurna 2). He pointed out that Iraq has big oil reserves estimated with 143 billion barrels and supposed to reach 250 billion barrels, in addition to the big gas reserves. He also confirmed on the plan of the iraqi ministry for the current and the next year to develop the production and invest gas, at the same time he called to expand the participation of Lukoil via the investment participation contracts in the mentioned sector or the other projects which will be started in 2017.
Alekperov noted «the need to establish conditions for further investments in the project by making appropriate amendments to the existing servicing contract». «Improving the economic parameters of the project will allow the company to increase oil production at West Qurna-2 which is also beneficial for Iraqi partners,» Alekperov was quoted as saying in Lukoil's statement.
Lukoil had earlier in the year announced they planned to invest additional time and money in West Qurna-2 oil field, however, Pavel Zhdanov, Lukoil’s Head of Capital Markets and M&A, announced «We’re not ready to proceed to the next phase of development until our negotiations with Iraq lead to some changes in the economics of the contract.»
West Qurna 2, one of the largest oil fields in the world, is located in southern Iraq, 65 km from the town of Basrah. The project development stakeholders are the South Oil Company of Iraq’s Ministry of Oil (on behalf of the state) and a consortium of contractors comprising Lukoil (75%) and the Iraqi state-owned North Oil Company (25%).
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