An $8 billion project to develop Iraq's Nassiriya oilfield could take output there to 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) within two years, Iraqi oil officials said on Tuesday. Iraq officials would meet representatives of Japan's Nippon Oil to continue negotiations on the contract on November 1, said Abdul-Mahdy al-Ameedi, deputy director of Iraq's Petroleum Licensing Directorate.
The two-year target for the project had previously stood at 150,000 bpd after two years, but that could be revised up to 200,000 bpd, said Jabbar Louaibi, Iraqi oil advisor, at a press conference after Iraqi officials met representatives of foreign oil companies at an oil contract workshop in Istanbul.
-- Iraqi officials to meet Nippon Oil on November 1
-- Previous two-year target was 150,000 bpd
"It should be 200,000 bpd," Louaibi said of the two-year target. Iraq is close to signing several deals that could add millions of barrels per day (bpd) to output and vault it into third place on the list of largest global oil producers, from the eleventh-largest. Most of those deals have been negotiated after an oil auction in June, Iraq's first since the 2003 US-led invasion.
But the Nassiriya contract was a closed contest outside of the main bidding rounds. The contract on offer is an engineering, procurement and construction deal, not a long-term service contract as offered in the bidding rounds. Nippon's proposal for the field also includes building a 300,000 bpd oil refinery. The cost of the refinery is not included in the $8 billion estimate for the field development. Nassiriya pumps around 20,000 bpd.
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