Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 13 / Trend A.Taghiyeva /
Abu Dhabi's State Oil Company (UAE) TAQA is holding the preliminary talks with the Iraqi Kurdish autonomy to buy a controlling package of General Exploration Partners consortium's shares, which is the operator of the Atrush oil field, Al-Quds Al-Arabiya newspaper said today.
The General Exploration Partners consortium includes U.S. company Aspect Energy, which has a 66.5 percent share and the Canadian ShaMaran Petroleum.
TAQA company plans to buy the entire share of Aspect Energy in the consortium, but a final agreement has not been achieved yet.
According to Aspect Energy's official website, General Exploration Partners has been developing the largest oil field Atrush since 2007.
Relations between the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq and Baghdad deteriorated in October 2011 after US-based Exxon Mobil received permission from the Kurdish authorities on the exploration and production of oil in this Iraqi region. Baghdad considered the deal illegal and warned the company that if it did not abandon the agreement with the Kurds, its deals with the central Iraqi government may be revised.
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. Oil production in Iraq as of late 2011 was 2.798 million barrels per day.
According to BP, the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq has oil reserves of 45 billion barrels.