Bloomberg cited Mr Hussain al-Shahristani Iraq’s oil minister as saying that Iraq, holder of the world’s third largest crude oil reserves needs more than USD 50 billion of investments in the country’s petroleum industry in the next 5 to 6 years.
The minister said that the country plans to increase its crude oil production to 6 million barrels a day by the end of 2015, from the current 2.4 million barrels. Iraq also aims to almost triple its refining capacity to 1.5 million barrels a day by 2017 from 540,000 barrels at present.
Iraq, whose oil industry accounts for about 65% of gross domestic product is seeking to attract foreign investors to help boost output after 6 years of conflict and prior sanctions destroyed its infrastructure. The country will hold a second bidding round for oil development rights this year after initial bidding garnered only one contract out of eight offered.
Mr Al-Shahristani said that “We have finished technical assessments” for Nassiriyah. He said that “Financial aspects of the contracts have to be discussed. As soon as that’s sorted out, we are willing to start the final phase of the negotiations.”
The minister said that Iraq is currently producing 20,000 barrels a day of oil at Nassiriyah and plans to boost output at the field to as much as 400,000 barrels. He said that Iraq’s proven oil reserves in 78 discovered fields are about 115 billion barrels equal to about 10% of the world’s total holdings.
(Sourced from http://www.steelguru.com/news/index/2009/07/15/MTAyMjMw/Iraq_needs_USD_50_billion_of_investments_in_oil_industry.html)
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Iraq needs USD 50 billion of investments in oil industry
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