PARIS (Dow Jones)--French oil major Total SA (TOT) and China National Petroleum Corp.'s offer for Iraq's Majnoon oil field was "balanced," a spokesman for the company said Friday, after the license was awarded to a consortium of Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB) and Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd, or Petronas.
"Total and its partner presented an offer that was balanced, based on our careful evaluation of the opportunities and our standard investment criteria," the spokesman said. He declined to elaborate.
Shell and Petronas' remuneration fee offer was $1.39 a barrel, while Total/CNPC offered $1.75 a barrel.
The Shell consortium suggested a production plateau of 1.8 million barrels a day, while the Total consortium suggested a 1.405 million barrel a day production target
The Majnoon field, located in southern
Iraq, holds some 12.8 billion barrels of oil reserves.