The Iraqi oil ministry Wednesday finalized in Baghdad a deal with a consortium made up of China National Petroleum Corp., Total SA (TOT) and Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd, better known as Petronas, to develop Iraq's Halfaya oil field, Iraqi oil officials said.
The consortium won the right to develop the field at the country's historic second licensing auction held in Baghdad in December.
The deal, is one of 10 deals either finalized over the last few days or to be signed this week to develop some of the world's largest oil fields. These deals theoretically will lead to an increase in Iraqi oil production capacity of over 9.5 million barrels a day on top of the current 2.4 million barrels a day.
Halfaya, one of Iraq's giant oil fields, has proven crude oil reserves of more than 4.1 billion barrels.
The CNPC/Total/Petronas alliance will be paid a fee of $1.40 for each produced barrel from the field, and pledged to reach a production plateau of 535,000 barrels a day.
The CNPC-led group beat three consortia which submitted offers to win the field. They were Norway's Statoil ASA (STO) and Russia's OAO Lukoil (LKOH.RS), India's state-run Oil & Natural Gas Corp, or ONGC, (500312.BY) and Turkey's TPAO and Italy's Eni SpA (E) and Angola's Sonangal.
The field, located in Missan governorate in southern Iraq, was discovered in 1976 and is about 30 kilometers long and 10 km wide.
CNPC holds 50% of the venture, while France's Total and Petronas each own a 25%.