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A senior Iraqi oil official has said that amendments to the development contract for the West Qurna Phase 1 oilfield have been accepted by the leaders of the successful consortium, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Abdul Mahdy al-Ameedi, head of the Oil Ministry’s Petroleum Contracts and Licensing Directorate confirmed the consortium’s compliance with the changes.
“They have accepted the changes, and we are finalizing the deal with them on Jan. 25,” he is reported as saying.
The Iraq Oil Ministry has not discussed the nature of the amendments, but industry experts believe that changes include the government of Iraq having the right to change production levels in order to comply with potential OPEC quota restrictions.
West Qurna 1 has proven reserves of 8.7 billion barrels and the ExxonMobil led consortium agreed a fee of US$1.90 for every additional barrel of oil above the current production of the field.
Current production at West Qurna 1 is 279,000 barrels per day (bpd) but the consortium has pledged to raise production to 2.325 million bpd.
