Zubair oil field

Zubair lies in the south east of Iraq, around 20 kilometres (km) south-west of the city of Basra, and is one of Iraq's largest fields. . The field is though to hold around 4 billion barrels of proven reserves.

Contract Negotiations
Follow Iraq's licensing rounds of 2009, an Eni-led consortium struck a deal with the Iraqi government for the development of the Zubair field. Under the contract, Eni holds a 32.81% stake, Occidental Petroleum 23.44%, Kogas 18.75% and state-owned Maysan Oil Company 25%. According to the contract, the consortium should boost by 10 percent the field's production from its starting level of around 200,000 barrels per day (bpd), and will then earn $2 for each extra barrel produced. The consortium initially askd for $4.80 a barrel produced but later revised its bid to $2 after BP accepted the same amount for the Rumaila field. The consortium also agreed to pay the Iraqi Oil Ministry $300 million as a refundable five-year loan, instead of paying a signature bonus.

Production and Export
When Eni took over the Zubair field it was producing 195,000 bpd. However according to Eni's field's expansion programme, production is expected to reach a plateau level of 1.125 million bpd by 2017. According to Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni in 2012, the consortium to date had invested 4-5 billion euros into the project (roughly US $5.2 - 6.5 billion), but the group expects to invest a total of $18 billion in the project.

= References =