East Baghdad oil field

The 'super-giant' East Baghdad oil field is situated in the Baghdad and Salah ad-Din governorates, 10 km east of Baghdad city. The contract area for the field is around 65 kilometres (km) long and 11km wide and covers only the section north-west of the Diyala river.

Despite proved reserves of 8 billion barrels, during the 2009 licensing rounds in Iraq there were not bids by the international consortia to exploit the deposit. Forbes magazine suggests that this may because much of the deposit lies under residential areas, as part of the field lies under the city of Baghdad. Following this, Oil Minister Shahristani announced that the Oil Ministry would develop the East Baghdad field on its own.

In May 2010 Oil Minister Shahristani said another bidding round could be held if there was enough preliminary interest from international companies. "We will talk to companies and if we find the desire to develop these fields, then we could announce another bidding round for the qualified companies to develop those fields," he said in an interview.

Production
As of 2012 Iraqi and Jordanian companies were drilling at the site and production reached 10,000 barrels per day (bpd). However production at the field is slower than in desert regions as the area is so densely populated.

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