The Iraq Oil Ministry has announced that it has finally awarded operating contracts for the Mansuriya and Siba natural gas fields to a consortium led by the state-backed Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPC) that includes South Korea’s Kogas.
TPC General Manager Mehmet Uysal and Abdul-Mehdi al-Amidi, director of Iraq's Office of Licensing and Contracts at Iraq's Oil Ministry, signed the 20-year agreement yesterday.
The consortium had originally won the auction for the operating rights in October 2010.
The Mansuriya and Siba fields are in the volatile region of Diyala near the Iranian border. Estimated combined reserves stand at 11.23 trillion cubic feet of gas, about 10 percent of Iraq's total 112 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves, the world's 10th largest.
The consortium's proposed plateau production target was 320 million standard cubic feet per day, and it set a remuneration fee of $7 per barrel of oil equivalent, according to Reuters.
