Watering the Oil Fields

Iraq is set to witness a few firsts when it comes to how oil fields have been and are being developed around the world. After all, at no time in the history of the industry has so many oil fields of this size been developed all at once in such a short time span. One of the major firsts will no doubt be the Common Seawater Supply Facility (CSSF) which will aim to process up to 15 million barrels per day of raw seawater from the Mideast Gulf in order to provide some 12 million b/d of treated water to be injected in fields in southern Iraq as they are developed. That makes it the biggest such project in the…

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1st bid round . 2nd bid round . bidding results . BP . CNOOC . common seawater supply facility . CSSF . drilling . ENI . Exxon . field development . Gharraf . Halfaya . Majnoon . Mideast Gulf . Missan . oil fields . oil ministry . Petronas . pipelines . rigs . Rumaila . seawater . service contracts . Shell . SOC . water cut . water flooding . water injection . West Qurna . Zubair The View from Baghdad

CNPC Lands Service Contract for Iraq’s Al-Ahdab Oil Field

12 November 2008

State China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) is set to start work immediately on its 20-year service contract to develop Al-Ahdab oil field in central Iraq following a formal signing Monday in Baghdad, making it the first company to break ground in Iraq’s oil sector since the 2003 US-led war there.

The deal was signed by CNPC head Jiang Jiemin and the director general of State Oil Marketing Organization (Somo), Falah al-Amiri, with both companies acting as the contractor in a joint venture where the Chinese state firm holds 75% and Somo holds the state’s 25% equity. North Oil Co. Deputy Director General Hameed Saeedi signed for the state operator, which is named as first party in the contract, sources…

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Ahdab . CNPC . field development . PSA . seismic . service contract . signing 2008

Solo Efforts

4 July 2002

Iraq is developing its oil fields with or without foreign help — including the giant fields promised to companies such as France’s Total Fina Elf and Russia’s Lukoil. But the firms are always welcome to hop on board, Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Rashid says.

Under a “national effort” launched in 1999, Iraq brought the giant southern Majnoon oil field on stream last year, Rashid says. The field was supposed to be developed by Elf Aquitaine — now part of Total — under a production-sharing contract. But after initialing the deal in 1998, Elf never signed on the dotted line because of UN sanctions. Total also signed up for Bin Umar, another big southern field, but again didn’t firm up…

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Al-Ahdab . Amer Rashid . Bai Hassan . Bin Umar . CNPC . Elf . field development . Hemrin . Khabbaz . Khurmala Dome . Kirkuk . Lukoil . Majnoon . national effort . oil production . ONGC block 8 . Pertamina . PetroVietnam . production capacity . PSA . Saddam field . sanctions . Tatneft . Total . TPAO . West Qurna . western desert . Zarubezhneft 2002

Iraq Kicks Off Buyback Contract Negotiations

25 February 2000

Iraq has finally started negotiations on its first modified buyback agreements, offering contracts with an average term of 12-15 years to a number of Asian companies – including Malaysia’s Petronas, which is discussing a deal for the 200,000 b/d Ratawi field.

Iraq believes buyback contracts may prove easier to implement than production-sharing contracts (PSCs) once United Nations sanctions prohibiting investment are lifted. “We want something we can really implement and we think the old type of contracts [PSCs] are more complicated in the present circumstances,” says an Iraqi industry source.

However, the key determinant of the buybacks’ success will be their attractiveness to foreign oil companies. At first glance, the contract periods appear competitive, though Iraqi officials warn that they…

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Bin Umar . BP . buyback . capex . field development . Lukoil . Majnoon . negotiations . Petronas . production sharing . PSC . Ratawi . risk . Somo . Sonatrach . state equity . Total . UN sanctions . western desert 2000