Nasiriyah oil field

The Nasiriyah field, located south of the capital Baghdad and with an estimated 4.4 billion barrels of crude reserves, was not included in either of Iraq's 2009 bidding rounds.

Contract Negotiations
A Japanese-led consortium, including Nippon Oil Corporation, reached an accord in principle with the Iraqi government in August 2009 for oil development rights at the field, but negotiations were effectively suspended in January 2010. The Japanese consortium had submitted bids for the contract to Iraq's Oil Ministry in February 2009 along with Spain's Repsol and Italy's Eni. In January 2011, Japanese trade minister Akihiro Ohata made an unannounced visit to Baghdad and called on the Iraqi government to resume negotiations with a group of Japanese firms over the development of the Nasiriya, but without success. The Iraqi government subsequently made the decision to develop the Nasiriyah oil field on its own.

However in August 2012 Iraq's Petroleum Contracts and Licensing Directorate (PCLD) announced that it was preparing for a licensing round to develop the Nasiriyah field and to build a refinery in the area. The field and refinery would be considered as a single project.

Production and Export
In June 2009, the chief engineer at the field told press that production was due to start imminently and that oil from the field would be transferred to Basra via pipeline.

Dhiya Jaafar, head of the South Oil Company (SOC), stated in February 2010 that they planned to drill ten oil wells in Nasiriyah over the year. He commented that “we are capable of boosting production from Nasiriyah from 10,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 50,000 bpd by the end of 2010."

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