20 February 2008 (The Scotsman)
More than 70 firms have registered to compete for tenders to help develop Iraq's oil reserves -- seen as vital to providing the funds to rebuild the shattered country -- the country's oil ministry disclosed yesterday.
The war-ravaged country currently produces only a fraction of its vast reserves, the third-largest in the world and among the cheapest to produce.
International oil firms have been positioning for years to gain access to what is now one of the most under-developed and easily accessible oilfields in the world.
Big oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Repsol YPF, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Norway's StatoilHydro are among firms that have said they have registered or intended to do so.
Asim Jihad, the spokesman for Iraq's oil ministry, said yesterday: "We are going to carefully study and check the documentation. Next month we will declare the companies which are permitted to work in the Iraqi oilfields."
Iraq produces about 2.3 million barrels of oil a day, dwarfed by its 115 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves. Only Saudi Arabia and Iran have larger reserves.
One oil official said last year that Iraq's oil sector could need as much as dollars 75 billion in investment.
Iraq has not said what fields it will tender, or on what terms, but the service and extraction contracts on offer are seen as a stop gap until a crucial oil law is passed.
Violence and political wrangling over the law, which will decide how to share the country's oil wealth among its different regions, has stifled foreign input in the oil sector.
