Plusieurs infos :
Iraq produced 2.458 million b/d of crude oil in January, up 50,000 b/d from December and exported 1.926 million b/d, down from 1.977 million b/d in December.
Iraq's Zubair-Eni deal effective Thursday
BASRA, Iraq, Feb 18 (Reuters) - A contract to develop Iraq's 4 billion barrel Zubair oilfield won by a group led by Italian oil major Eni became effective on Thursday, a senior Iraqi oil official said.
Eni and its partners, U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum Corp and South Korea's KOGAS, signed in January a final contract with Baghdad setting an output target for the field of 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd).
"The effective date for the Zubair contract was today, Thursday," Dhiya Jaafar, current head of the South Oil Co, told Reuters.
"The rest of the contracts will follow once the administrative and legal requirements are completed ... I expect during this month," Jaafar said in the southern oil hub of Basra. He gave no date for when the group planned to pay the $300 million signature bonus due for the contract to develop Zubair. The sum is due within 30 days of the effective date.
The Eni-led consortium plans to invest about $20 billion in Zubair over the 20-year term of the contract, which can be extended to 25 years.
The Zubair deal is one of a series struck by Iraq that could transform it to a top oil producer with an output capacity of 12 million bpd, giving it the cash it needs to rebuild its battered economy after years of war and sanctions.
Iraq sees extra 200,000 bpd of oil this year
* Deals mean 200,000 bpd more of oil
* Floating terminals to boost export capacity
BASRA, Iraq, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Iraq expects to produce an additional 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil this year after it signed a series of deals with oil majors, the country's oil minister told Reuters on Thursday.
Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani also said that new floating terminals will help raise Iraq's export capacity by more than 2 million bpd by the middle of 2011.
"We will not have any bottlenecks to stop us increasing exports this year," Shahristani said.
Iraq aims to install four new floating oil terminals and three new undersea oil pipelines that will boost export capacity to 8 million barrels per day from a current 1.9 million bpd, the head of Iraq's South Oil Co. (SOC) said in November.
Iraq, in desperate need for cash to rebuild its battered economy after years of war and sanctions, has struck a series of development contracts with global oil majors that could transform it into a top oil producer.
The deals could lift Iraq's output capacity to 12 million bpd in seven years, rivalling top oil producer Saudi Arabia.
On Wednesday, the South Oil Co. along with partners BP and China's CNPC, invited 10 firms to drill 56 new wells in Rumaila oilfield.
BP, CNPC invite 10 companies to bid for Rumaila drill contracts
18/02/2010 (Platts)
The BP-led consortium awarded the service contract to develop Iraq's giant Rumaila oil field has invited 10 companies, including some of the biggest names in the oil services business, to bid for drilling contracts, a senior Iraqi oil official said Wednesday.
Abdul-Mahdi al-Ameedi, director general of the Iraqi oil ministry's contracts and licensing department, told Platts the consortium partners had qualified 10 companies but no contracts had yet been awarded.
He identified the companies as international oil services companies Halliburton, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes and Weatherford as well as three Chinese companies, Turkey's TDIC, Awlad Anwar al-Aqad, a Syrian company and the state-owned Iraqi Drilling Company.
BP and CNPC were last June awarded a 20-year service contract for further development of the Rumaila oil field after presenting a bid to raise production from the southern Iraqi field to 2.85 million b/d from around 1 million b/d currently for a service fee of $2/barrel.
BP will lead the consortium with a 38% stake in the operating company with CNPC holding 37% and the Iraq State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) the remaining 25%.
There are currently 800 wells at Rumaila, half of which are shut in. BP plans to rehabilitate these wells, as well as drilling a further 1,200 wells. This should take place over the first three years of the contract.
After that, the company would begin enhanced redevelopment and further exploration and appraisal of the field.
Ameedi said it was not clear if other companies awarded service contracts in Iraq's first and second bidding rounds would invite new companies to tender or if, as is the case with Malaysian Petronas, they would use their own drilling subsidiaries for the work.
Petronas won stake in four fields during the two licensing rounds.
Sabah Shibeeb al-Saidi, deputy director general and head of the legal commercial department for the Iraqi oil ministry, said in Houston this week that Rumaila alone would involve drilling 1,000 wells in the six-year development work period of the contracts.
Up to 5,000 wells may be needed for all 10 contracts, al-Saidi said, but did not immediately know how many rigs this would require.
Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proven reserves and aims to raise production capacity to 12 million b/d once all the awarded fields are developed.
Current capacity is 2.5 million b/d.