Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 26 / Trend A.Badalova /
Iraq plans to finalize talks for reduction of production plateaus on three large oil fields by the end of 2013, International Oil Daily (IOD) reported with the reference to Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussein Shahristani.
"We expect before the end of this year to finalize our revisions and sign amendments to the contracts. Two amendments have already been signed and we expect the others will be signed soon," Shahristani told IOD.
In particular, the target production is planned to be reduced from preliminary 2.825 billion barrels per day (bpd) to 1.7 million bpd at West Qurna-1 field, from 1.8 million bpd to 1.2 million bpd at Majnoon field and from 2.85 million bpd to 2.1 million bpd at Rumaila field.
According to Shahristani, with the lower production from these three major fields, Iraq will officially abandon efforts to reach more than 13 million bpd by 2017.
"All our studies came to the conclusion that the best plateau rate was about 9 million bpd by 2020," he said.
Shahristani said that Iraq is also in talks with other companies on smaller fields about changing their production rates. According to him, Iraq is considering increasing target production at Al-Garraf field, which began production this month, after three years of field studies revealed a big bump in reserves from 4 billion barrels to 7.5 billion barrels. Last month Al-Garraf field started producing 35,000 bpd and the production is expected to increase to 50,000 bpd next month.
Earlier, Iraqi Oil Ministry spokesman Asym Jihad told Trend that it is planned to increase the production capacity of Al-Garraf field to 230,000 barrels per day by 2017.
According to Shahristani, China National Petroleum Corp. requested a boost in production at the Ahdab field from its original bid of 110,000 bpd to 160,000 bpd after finding more reserves.
Shahristani also said that Iraq's main problem is the lack of sufficient storage. He added that he expected new storage tanks by end-2013.
Oil production in Iraq was on average 3.4 million barrels per day in August 2013 compared to 3.2 million barrels in July.
The main oil fields in Iraq are in the south of the country. They are Rumaila, Zubair, Nahr Umr, Majnoon and West Qurna. At least 80 per cent of the oil produced in Iraq is exported.
Iraq increased oil export to 79.8 million barrels in August 2013 compared to 78 million barrels in July and exported averagely 2.57 million barrels of oil per day.