Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct 23 /Trend A.Taghiyeva/
Iraq has urged foreign companies to build a new refinery with capacity of 300 thousand barrels per day in Al-Nasiriya province in the frame of petrochemical industry development project, the State Oil Company of Iraq (Somooil) said on Tuesday.
In addition, Baghdad urges foreign investors to participate in the Al-Nasiriya field development project of, with reserves of around 4.4 billion barrels of oil.
Iraq has three refineries located in the provinces of Bija, Basra and Al-Douri, the total capacity of 567,000 barrels per day. However, the country aims to increase oil refining capacity to 750,000 barrels per day next year. To do this, Iraq intends to build three refineries in the provinces of Karbala, Kirkuk and Missan.
According to BP, Iraq's proven oil reserves amounted to 143.1 billion barrels as of late 2011.
The country ranks third in OPEC after Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The major oil fields of Iraq are Rumaila, Zubair, Nahr Umr, Majnoon and West Qurna in the south of the country. Some 80 percent of the oil produced in Iraq is exported.