Middle Furat oil fields

The Middle Furat area is a cluster of three undeveloped oil fields located in Karbala governorate in central Iraq, south of Al-Razaza Lake. The fields were discovered in 1960 (Kifl), 1983 (Merjan) and 1987 (West Kifl). Karbala province is home to one of the holiest cities in Shiite Islam.

The approximate sizes of the fields are 2.5km by 2km (Merjan), 10 km by 8 km (West Kifl) and 5 km by 1.5 km (Kifl).

=Contract Negotiations=

The contract area was put up for bidding in Iraq's second post-war licensing round. However on the 12 December 2009 Iraq's Petroleum Contracts and Licensing Directorate (PCLD) announced that no bids had been received for the Middle Furat contract area. In May 2010, oil minister Hussein Shahristani announced that the government was considering inviting foreign companies to develop the fields.