BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept.7
By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:
Russia’s LUKOIL company has received back the expenditure on West Qurna-2 project in Iraq and is now looking ahead to its profitability, said the company’s president Vahid Alakbarov, Trend reports.
Talking about previous plans to sell its stake at West Qurna-2, Alakbarov noted that it was not greenlighted by the Iraqi government.
Alakbarov noted that one of the largest companies showed interest in LUKOIL’s assets.
“We applied to Iraqi government, since we’re not authorized even to start negotiations without its consent. However, the Iraqi government said it is very interested in LUKOIL’s operation in the country. Therefore, we continue talks with Iraqi government on West Qurna-2 project and are reaching certain understanding. The formation at Yamama, one of the two formations in the field, where we reach production of 33,000 barrels per day, is an absolutely separate complex formation with a high content of hydrogen sulfide, complex permeability, which requires additional work. Both Iraqi experts and officials agreed with this," he told Russian Kommersant newspaper.
West Qurna-2 field is located in the southern part of Iraq, 65 kilometers north-west of Basra, a major seaport city, and is one of the world's largest fields. The field's initial recoverable reserves come to around 14 billion barrels. More than 90 percent of the reserves are concentrated in Mishrif and Yamama accumulations.
On December 12, 2009 the consortium of PJSC LUKOIL and Statoil, a Norwegian company, was awarded a contract for the development of West Qurna-2 field, one of the world's largest fields. On January 31, 2010, a services contract was signed for the development and production at West Qurna-2. The contract was ratified by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Iraq.
On March 29, 2014, commercial oil production was commenced at the field.
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