Iraq will top oil producing countries in Middle East

[k98nights]

Iraq will top oil producing countries in Middle East

Wednesday, October 27th 2010 2:44 PM

Baghdad, Oct. 27 (AKnews) - The Iraqi Oil Ministry stated on Wednesday that Iraq will top the oil production in the Middle East during the next five years where it will export 12 million barrels per day, assuring that this process will take place after activating the performance of national oil companies.

Abdul Karim Luaibi, Deputy Oil Minister, told AKnews that the first, second and third licensing rounds are returning the oil pipeline between Iraq and Syria, in addition to signing an agreements to keep the pipeline of Ceyhan for another 15 years, will make Iraq the first oil exporting country to the world during the next five years.

"Iraq has the capabilities to be the first oil producer in the region after receiving assurances from the member states of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with respect to increasing its oil exports with foreign companies that won the three licensing rounds."

Iraq signed oil contracts with international companies earlier, this year to develop ten oil fields, in order to raise the production of crude oil to 12 million barrels per day within the next six years, but the investing companies have fears of the worsening security situation in the country, which may hinder the improvement in the production level before the deadline, as well as the problems that are still outstanding between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), in Erbil regarding contracts signed by the latter with foreign companies to extract oil from fields in the region.

Iraq has the third oil reserves in the world that is estimated at 115 billion barrels, and comes after Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The Ministry of Oil announced last September that the storage of crude oil in the country was 505 billion barrels of 66 discovered fields, while the reserve that could be extracted reached to about 143 billion barrels, assuring that the new numbers do not include the fields of the Kurdistan region.

Reported by Jaafar al-Wanan

Rn/Ak AKnews

http://www.aknews.com/en/aknews/3/191367/

[cgbrown]

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