The first phase of Iraq’s West Qurna oil field is expected to boost lead field developer ExxonMobil’s production by 10% over its agreed baseline this month or by early April, an Iraqi oil official was quoted by Reuters as saying on Thursday.
Meeting this target sustainably over a 30-day period will allow Exxon and its partners to begin recovering investment expenditures.
Abdul-Mahdy al-Ameedy, head of the Ministry of Oil’s licensing and contracting office told the news agency said: “God willing, during this month or start of April,” when responding to a question about when the US oil major would meet its production target for the oil field which lies west of the southern city of Basra.
ExxonMobil partnered with Royal Dutch Shell in its winning bid to develop the 8.7 billion barrel West Qurna Phase One Field over a 20-year period. The partners are reported to be targeting a production boost to 2.825 million bpd with a baseline production of 244,000 bpd according to Reuters.
Exxon and Shell are said to have exceeded this amount with a 268,000 bpd production, the claim is being examined by the Iraqi Oil Ministry, Reuters reported.
The consortium agreed a fee of US$1.90 for every additional barrel of oil above the current production of the field in an agreed contract change initiated by the Iraqi government last January.
Iraq is hoping to increase its oil production to 12 million bpd from its current 2.7 million bpd which is just below its pre-war level of 2.8 million bpd.
About two-thirds of Iraq’s produced oil comes from the southern fields, with the remainder from the north-central fields near Kirkuk.
