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By John Lee.

Reuters reports that Baghdad is working to cancel Total's involvement in the Halfaya oilfield, following the company's announcement that it signed exploration deals in Kurdistan.

Abdul-Mahdy al-Ameedi, the director of the oil ministry's contracts directorate, said on Wednesday:

"We are working to cancel Total's stake in the Halfaya contract. We will disqualify and terminate the contract of any company signing a deal with the Kurdistan region without the approval of the oil ministry."

According to the report from Reuters, Total declined to comment on the Iraqi statement.

Total and its partners recently started production at Halfaya oilfield.

PetroChina, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), China’s largest energy producer, holds 37.5% of the Halfaya consortium, while Total and Petronas each hold a 18.75% stake in the consortium, with Iraq’s state partner holding the remaining 25%.

(Sources: Reuters)

By John Lee.

PetroChina and its partners Total and Petronas said on Wednesday that oil production has started at the Halfaya oil field in southern Iraq.

Iraqi Oil Minister Abdul-Karim Elaibi [Luaibi] said the field will produce 100,000 barrels a day and reach 535,000 bpd in 2016. The consortium will be paid $1.40 for each barrel of oil they extract.

PetroChina, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), China's largest energy producer, holds 37.5% of the consortium, while Total and Petronas each hold a 18.75% stake in the consortium, with Iraq's state partner holding the remaining 25%.

So far, PetroChina has invested $700 million in Halfaya and the investment is expected to reach $1 billion by the end of this year, said Adnan Sajet, head of the joint-management committee of the field.

Six rigs and 2,000 Iraqis are employed at the site. 22 new wells have been drilled in the field. Five wells existed before PetroChina started work on the project.

Bloomberg puts the reserves of the field at 4.945 billion barrels, while NINA reports 3.8 billion barrels, and both Dow Jones and AIN report reserves at 16 billion barrels.

(Sources: Dow Jones, Bloomberg, NINA, AIN)

State-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) says the first phase of Iraq's Halfaya oilfield has started operating at 100,000 bpd, 15 months ahead of schedule.

The company says it has already started preliminary work on the second phase of development at the field, which will bring the capacity to 200,000 bpd.

Iraq signed a 20-year oil production agreement in 2010 to develop Halfaya with CNPC, France's Total and Malaysian state company Petronas, for a fee of $1.40 per barrel. CNPC has a 37.5 percent interest in the consortium. The Halfaya project is CNPC's largest overseas investment unit for which it also acts as the operator.

Last year, CNPC completed the first phase of the Al-Ahdab oilfield in Iraq, with a capacity of 60,000 bpd. CNPC, the parent of PetroChina, also received its first cargo of crude oil as payment for helping to develop Iraq's Rumaila oilfield last year.

China's crude oil imports from Iraq rose 17 percent on year to 5.95 million tonnes, or 359,000 bpd, in the first four months of this year.

(Sources: CNPC, Reuters)

Exxon Mobil is conspicuously absent from the finalized list of 47 pre-qualified bidders for the Iraq's fourth round of energy exploration rights.

The Petroleum Contracts and Licensing Directorate (PCLD) at the Ministry of Oil has confirmed that the auction will take place as scheduled on May 30-31.

The full list of pre-qualified companies is shown below:

PetroChina announces a new tender for provision of 4 driling services unit .

Bidding Details:

-ITB Package Request Fee: USD 100.00

-Place to obtain the ITB Package: PetroChina Base Camp . Kahla'a Missan Province Iraq.

Qualifications and documents required for ITB Package request:

-Filled ITB Package Request Form

-Copy of Certificate of Incorporation

-Copy of Certificate of Contracting /trade

-Original Power of Attorney to whom ITB package will be issued. This power of attorney must be signed by the legal representative of the interested company .

For Contact information , please click here.

Iraq's oil ministry has issued a list of the 41 companies qualified to participate in its fourth energy bidding round in January:

ATPECO  - Japan

Bashneft - Russia

BP - UK

Chevron Corp - United States

CNOOC - China

CNPC - China

Edison - Italy

Egyptian General Petroleum Corp - Egypt

Eni Iraq - Italy

ExxonMobil - United States

Gazprom - Russia

Hess Corporation - United States

INA-Industrja Nafte - Croatia

Inpex Corp - Japan

ITOCHU Corp - Japan

Japex - Japan

JOGMEC - Japan

JX Nippon Oil and Gas - Japan

Kogas - South Korea

Kuwait Energy - Kuwait

Lukoil - Russia

Mitsubishi Corp - Japan

Mitsui Oil - Japan

Mubadala Oil - United Arab Emirates

Occidental Petroleum - United States

OJSC Oil Company Rosneft - Russia

OJSC TNK-BP Holding - Russia

ONGC Videsh Ltd - India

Pakistan Petroleum - Pakistan

Petro Vietnam - Vietnam

PetroChina - China

Petronas - Malaysia

Premier Oil - UK

PT Pertamina - Indonesia

PTTEP International Holding - Thailand

Royal Dutch Shell - UK/Netherlands

Sonangol - Angola

Statoil - Norway

Sumitomo Corp - Japan

Total - France

TPAO - Turkey

By By Mu Chunshan. Originally published in The Diplomat, and re-produced with permission by Iraq Business News.

The visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to China didn’t just fail to grab much international media attention – there was also little coverage in the Chinese media, too.

Most Chinese associate Iraq with Saddam Hussein and the US-led war that unseated him. Those with a deeper understanding of international affairs will also be aware of Iraq’s vast oil reserves. As of October 2010, Iraq had proven oil reserves of 143.1 billion barrels of oil – the world’s second largest. Its oil reserves are its strongest draw for foreign capital, and the development of Chinese-Iraqi relations means that China will have a significant stake in the country’s oil interests.

Already, China is working with Iraq on its oil and gas development. In 2008, PetroChina and another Chinese oil company, China ZhenHua Oil, signed a contract worth $3 billion with the Iraqi government for oil exploration rights for 23 years. This was the first major deal signed with foreign firms following the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Drilling began last month, and is eventually expected to produce about 60,000 barrels of oil per day.

In 2009, PetroChina and a British firm obtained exploration rights to Iraq’s biggest oil field, which has oil reserves of about 17 billion barrels of oil, which is more than 10 percent of the country’s oil reserves.

But Maliki’s visit wasn’t just about oil.

On the second day of his visit, Maliki met with China’s business representatives, with only one media outlet – China’s official Xinhua News Agency – invited to cover the meeting.

Reuters reports that the China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), the first foreign oil company to sign an oil service contract in Iraq after former president Saddam Hussein was toppled, said on Monday said that it completed construction of the first phase of the Al-Ahdab oilfield.

The parent of PetroChina Co Ltd said it started work on the Al-Ahdab oilfield in March 2009 after successfully renegotiating an old development deal, and hoped to pump 110,000-130,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the field, which had estimated reserves of 1 billion barrels.

Completion of the first phase, with a capacity of 60,000 bpd, was ahead of schedule, marking major progress in building Middle East oil and gas projects, reported the China Petroleum Daily, CNPC's in-house newspaper.

The field was the first new oil capacity building project in 20 years in Iraq, the report said.

(Source: Reuters)

WorleyParsons has been awarded a contract by BP Iraq NV and its partners PetroChina and the State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) of the Republic of Iraq, to provide conceptual design, front end engineering design, minimum work obligations and integrated project management team services to boost production from the super-giant Rumaila Oil Field in Southern Iraq.

In November 2009, BP and its partners entered into a 20 year technical service contract with the South Oil Company of Iraq under which the BP led consortium is required to nearly triple output from the field to 2.85 million barrels of oil per day over the next six years. On completion of this work, Rumaila will become the world’s second largest producing oil field, contributing approximately 10% of Middle East production, 7% of OPEC production and 3% of global production.

The contract will be executed from WorleyParsons’ offices in London, UAE and Iraq, with an initial revenue in excess of $100 million.

WorleyParsons’ CEO John Grill commented: “We are pleased to be able to continue our involvement in the reconstruction and development of Iraq’s oil and gas infrastructure. We understand the significance of the Rumaila development to the regeneration of the Iraqi economy, and we will work closely with the partners in the Rumaila development, BP, PetroChina and SOMO to help create the maximum value over the life of the field”.

The Rumaila Operating Organisation (ROO) has met a major milestone in the re-development of the super-giant field in Southern Iraq by increasing production by more than 10 per cent above the 1.066 million barrels a day (b/d) initial production rate agreed in December 2009.

Meeting this production target, and the approval of the Rumaila rehabilitation plan last year, represents the achievement of two significant contractual requirements of the technical services agreement (TSA) signed between BP, PetroChina, the Oil Marketing Company of Iraq (State Oil Marketing Organisatino - SOMO) and the South Oil Company in November 2009.

Welcoming this milestone, His Excellency AbdulKareem Luaibi [Elaibi], the Minister of Oil, said: “This production increase is an important step for Iraq and demonstrates the success of the contracts awarded, I am very pleased to see the progress for Rumaila and we wish BP, the South Oil Company, PetroChina and all the companies involved further success over the coming years.”

“This is an exciting milestone in the history of Rumaila and is a demonstration of what we can achieve by working in partnership with SOC, BP, PetroChina, and the dedication of our contractors. It is testimony to the efforts of the thousands of people who are working on Rumaila – not just that we have increased production but that we are doing so sustainably and with due regard to safety,” said Rumaila Joint General Manager Salah Mohammed.