Garraf oil field

The Garraf oil field is situated in Dhi Qar Governorate in southern Iraq, some 5 kilometres (km) northwest of Al-Refaei city, 9 km south-east of Qal’at Suker city and 85 km north of Nasiriya. Discovered in 1984, the oil found ranges in gravity from 15 to 36 °API, in multiple reservoirs. The field is 17.5km long and 5.5 km wide. According to Iraq Oil Report the Dhi Qar province is slated to be one of the biggest producing areas in the country.

Contract Negotiations
A consortium led by Malaysian Petronas submitted a bid for development of the Garraf field on the first day of Iraq's second licensing round in December 2009. According to leaked US diplomatic cables, the undeveloped Garraf field was one of the first two fields offered, which received bids at 'stunningly low prices'. The international partners in the winning consortium were made up of Petronas, (60%), and Japex (40%). According to the deal, the remuneration fee offered was $1.49 and the 'plateau production target' was 150,000 barrels per day (bpd).

The consortium suffered a setback at the site when local tribesmen refused to cede their ancestral lands peacefully without a cash payment from Petronas. The alleged extortion drew condemnation from the Iraqi Oil Ministry however, and the tribal sheiks denied any threat of violence.

Production and Export
According to Adnan Galay, former chairman of the field's management committee, output from the field is expected to hit 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of 2012, 60,000 bpd in 2013 and 100,000 bpd in 2014. Garraf has an eventual output target of 230,000 bpd, although the Petronas-Japex partnership may look to increase production beyond that level, according to officials. However in July 2012 the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Affairs, Hussein al-Shahristani, reportedly urged the consortium developing the Gharraf field to speed up progress on the project.

In June 2012, as the consortium was ramping up production, Petronas opened up a tender for the construction of a new pipeline to take crude from the field to central transport infrastructure.