BAGHDAD, Oct 13 – Competing consortiums led by US energy giant Exxon Mobil and Russia\’s Lukoil have submitted bids that meet conditions for a major southern Iraqi oilfield, the country\’s oil minister said on on Tuesday.
Both consortiums agreed to be paid 1.9 dollars per additional barrel they extract from West Qurna 1 on top of current production, Hussein al-Shahristani told reporters in Baghdad.
"After a major effort from the oil ministry, our price was accepted, which is 1.9 dollars per additional barrel," he said.
"Two consortiums accepted the price — Exxon Mobil, which proposed an additional 2.1 million barrels a day, and Lukoil, which offered 1.5 million barrels a day.
"Iraq has an opportunity to go ahead and sign this contract with Iraqi conditions."
Shahristani said that a decision would probably be made between the two consortiums within two weeks.
West Qurna 1 produces around 279,000 barrels of oil per day and has reserves of around 8.5 billion barrels, according to oil ministry figures released earlier this year.
Exxon Mobil\’s consortium is with Anglo-Dutch energy firm Shell, while Lukoil is partnering with ConocoPhillips.
Iraq originally offered eight oil and gas fields to foreign energy companies at an auction in June, but only Britain\’s BP and China\’s CNPC reached agreement with Baghdad at the time.
