Malaysia’s Synergistic Generation Sdn Bhd (SGSB), which is 60 percent owned by UMW Holdings Bhd, has entered into a $30 million contract  with Petronas Carigali Iraq Holding BV (PCIHBV).

The contract is for the procurement of materials and equipment and installation and commissioning of all equipment and facilities by SGSB for the setting up of the Garraf Power Plant Phase I at the Garraf oilfield.

(Source: Bernama)

Russia’s Gazprom Neft expects to start commercial production at Iraq’s Badra (Badrah) gas field in August 2013, according to Reuters.

Initial production is expected to be 15,000 barrels per day.

The company said it commenced drilling the first appraisal well on Thursday.

“The results of the initial appraisal wells will allow us to better understand the geology of the location, produce a definitive operating plan and move to commercial production of at least 15,000 barrels of oil per day in August 2013,” Vadim Yakovlev, Gazprom Neft’s first deputy head, said in a statement.

In January, Iraq signed a deal with Gazprom Neft, Turkey’s TPAO, Korea’s Kogas and Malaysia’s Petronas to develop Badra oilfield, which has estimated reserves of 100 million barrels of oil. The field is near Iraq’s border with Iran.

(Source: Reuters)

The Missan Oil Company expects to increase output by 20 percent to 120,000 barrels a day by the end of this year

The company’s Director General Ali Muarej told Boomberg that ten wells will be made operational at the Halfaya field south of Baghdad in the next two months to raise production.

Total, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), and Petronas are developing Halfaya.

CNPC has a 50 percent share in the project, with Total and Petronas each owning 25 percent.

(Source: Bloomberg)

Weatherford International has won a deal to build early production facilities at Iraq’s untapped Garraf oil field in southern Iraq, a former Iraqi oil ministry official said Wednesday, according to a report from Dow Jones.

Adnan Galay, who retired as chairman of the field’s joint management committee a few weeks ago, declined to give the value of the deal. However, contracting sources attending an Iraqi energy meeting in Istanbul said the contract is worth about $200 million.

Galay said that Lakeshore TolTest Corp will be a subcontractor to the project.

Weatherford was awarded the contract by the Malaysian company Petronas (45% stake) and its partners, Japan Petroleum Exploration (Japex) (30% stake), and Iraq’s state South Oil Company (25% stake).

Petronas, which has been considering bid proposals since the late summer of 2010, chose Weatherford over three rival bidders–Petrofac with JGC, and Saipem with Punj Lloyd.

The giant oil services company earlier this year won a deal worth $52 million to drill 11 new wells in Garraf, located halfway between the southern cities of Karbala and Nasiriya in Thi Qar [Dhi Qar] governorate. The field was discovered in the 1980s by the then Iraqi oil ministry, and has oil reserves of 1 billion barrels.

Output from the field is expected to hit 50,000 barrels a day next year, 60,000 barrels a day in 2013 and 100,000 barrels a day in 2014, Galay said.

Garraf has an eventual output target of 230,000 barrels a day, although the Petronas-Japex partnership may increase production beyond that level, officials said.

“Three wells have been drilled to date, and testing oil proves that gravity ranges from 24 to 36 degrees API in the two reservoirs of the field,” Galay said.

The Garraf early production work involves construction of a degasing facility with two trains of 50,000 barrels a day each, as well as storage tanks and infrastructure.

Weatherford earlier carried out the front-end engineering and design study at Garraf.

(Source: Dow Jones)

Output at Iraq’s Halfaya oilfield will rise to 70,000 barrels a day in 2012 with the drilling of 48 wells, As Sabah newspaper said on Tuesday.

Bloomberg reports that two projects valued at a total of $187 million will be built next year at the oilfield. The projects include a crude oil processing facility with a capacity of 100,000 barrels a day, and a pumping station to increase export capacity.

Total, CNPC and Petronas are developing Halfaya after signing a contract last year. CNPC has a 50 percent share in the project with Total and Petronas owning 25 percent each.

(Source: Bloomberg)

Iraq and partners Shell and Petronas awarded a contract worth more than $60 million [72 billion Iraqi dinars] to Turkish firm Enka to install and operate two production facilities at the Majnoon oilfield, according to a report from Reuters.

The construction and energy company will also install two crude storage tanks and four pumping units which will connect a pipeline network at three well-pads, an Iraqi oil official told the agency on Friday.

“Under the deal, Turkey’s Enka will install two production facilities with a capacity for processing 100,000 barrels per day of crude to be produced from the supergiant Majnoon oilfield … Output is expected to hit 175,000 bpd in 2012 and that requires installing new crude facilities and further preparing well-pads to drill new oil wells.”

The official said Iraq, Shell and Petronas still had to set a date to sign the contract with Enka.

Four companies initially tendered for the deal, including Italy’s Saipem and India’s Punj Lloyd Ltd .

(Source: Reuters)

In July, Shell will start installing 15 production wells and pipelines in the Majnoon oilfield in southern Iraq, Vice president and country chairman Hans Nijkamp told the website of Energy Exchange.

It will also upgrade two degassing stations and build “a new central processing facility to include two new 50,000 bbl/d capacity early production systems”.

Shell has concluded a geographical survey that produced “positive results” about the southern Shatt al-Arab waterway’s ability to handle equipment needed to develop the Majnoon oilfield. “We are now able to use it as a route to transport equipment to Majnoon and minimize road transport .. We are also in the process of constructing a jetty.”

Together with Petronas of Malaysia, Shell won a 20-year service contract in 2009 to raise output from Majnoon to 1.8 million barrels a day. Shell Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser said in October that production at Majnoon had risen to 70,000 barrels a day. The oil field, which straddles the Basra and Maysan provinces, has estimated crude reserves of 12 billion barrels and 9.5 trillion cubic feet of gas.

As we reported over the weekend, Dubai-based Dodsal has won a $106m contract for a pipeline at Majnoon.

(Source: Bloomberg)

The consortium of Chinese, Malaysian and French companies working on the Halfaya oil field, 35 km east of Amara, in Maysan [Missan] province, have completed drilling four oil wells.

Ali Altarfi, the media department of Missan Oil Company, told Aswat al-Iraq that, “the plan is to drill 300 wells in this gigantic oil field within 5 years, according to the agreement signed with the Ministry of Oil.”

The contract stipulates that production should reach 535 thousand barrels per day (bpd), which is five times higher than the local production of the field, in addition to provision of gas products to neighboring power stations.

“The reserves of this oil field are expected to reach 15 billion barrels,” Altarfi added.

The companies that won the bid to develop this field are CNPC, Total, and Petronas.

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)