Azerbaijan, Baku, June 21 / Trend, A.Taghiyeva /
Yesterday the Iraqi government ratified an agreement signed with the U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford, Iraqi Oil Ministry's official Asym Jihad told Trend on Thursday.
He said the company will work on the largest oil field Az-Zabira. In particular, it will deal with the construction of production facilities for oil production in the field.
Jihad said that the contract cost is estimated at $843 million.
He said the consortium consisting of Italy's Eni, U.S. Occidental Petroleum and Korean Kogas deal with development and oil production at the Az-Zabira field. The consortium has an agreement with Iraq for 20 years. The consortium plans to increase production on the field up to 1.2 million barrels of oil until 2017.
According to BP, Iraq's proven oil reserves as of late 2011 amounted to 143.1 billion barrels.
The country ranks third in OPEC after Saudi Arabia and Iran.
According to the same estimates of BP, oil production in Iraq in late 2011 amounted to 2.798 million barrels per day.
The major oil fields of Iraq are Rumaila, Zubair, Nahr Umr, Majnoon and West Qurna in the south of the country. About 80 per cent of oil extracted in Iraq, is exported.