BAGHDAD: Iraq has reached agreement with BP, Shell and Lukoil to restart stalled investment in oil fields the firms are developing, allowing projects that were halted this year to resume and crude production to increase in 2017, Iraqi oil officials said.
The agreements, reached in July and August, effectively delay to the second half of the year projects that the three companies had planned to carry out in the first half, which had been suspended because of low oil prices. As a result of the investment, Iraq’s crude output should increase by 250,000-350,000 barrels per day next year, the Iraqi officials said. The country now produces about 4.6 million bpd, most of it from the southern region.
Iraq is OPEC’s second biggest producer after Saudi Arabia, and the increase in its output, alongside that of Iran, could aggravate the global oil glut and complicate discussions between OPEC and non-OPEC producers on output limits to prop up prices. Shell, BP and Lukoil all declined immediate comment. According to documents seen by Reuters, all three firms agreed to spend in the second half of 2016 roughly half the budgets they proposed for 2015. BP agreed to spend $1.8 billion this year at the Rumaila field it operates. It had initially agreed to spend $3.5 billion last year, which it later revised down to $2.5 billion.
Shell agreed to spend $742 million after proposing $1.5 billion last year. Lukoil would spend $1.08 billion, compared to $2.1 billion it had proposed last year. “Many vital projects that foreign firms were forced to halt due to lower oil prices will be brought online after the recent budget cuts agreements,” said Basim Abdul Kareem, the deputy chairman of South Oil Co that oversees oil operations in the region. “The companies now should have the needed budgets to implement these projects,” he told Reuters. Iraq has yet to reach agreements with Exxon, CNPC and Petronas on fields those firms are also developing in the south.
