South Korea's state-run petroleum company said Tuesday it has discovered crude oil reserves in two blocks it is exploring in northern Iraq.
South Korea
's
state-run petroleum company said Tuesday it has discovered crude oil reserves
in two blocks it is exploring in northern
Iraq
.
The Maeil Business Newspaper said the reserves in the Bazian and Sangaw North
blocks in the
Kurdistan
autonomous region are
estimated to total two billion barrels.
But the Korea National Oil Corp., or KNOC, said in a statement it was too early
to estimate the size of the reserves. It said a formal announcement of the
discovery would be made only after consultation with local authorities.
The Bazian block, in which a KNOC-led South Korean consortium has a 100% stake,
holds an estimated 1.27 billion barrels, the newspaper said, quoting sources at
KNOC and the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
Sangaw North, in which KNOC has a 20% stake, is believed to have 790 million
barrels, it said.
Under a production-sharing contract with
Kurdistan
,
South
Korea
would have some 410 million
barrels, it added.
KNOC won exploration and development rights to the two fields in 2007 and
started exploration in October.
Canada
's
Heritage Oil has already discovered a large crude reserve just three kilometers
from Bazian, Yonhap news agency said.
The Iraqi central government has lodged a protest over KNOC's development of
oilfields in
Kurdistan
and excluded it from its own
oil development projects.
Iraq
's
officially confirmed oil reserves are the world's fourth largest at about 115
billion barrels, according to the CIA World Factbook.
Διαβάστε ακόμα
Τρι, 24 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 19:58
Τρι, 24 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 19:54
Τετ, 18 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 18:32
Τετ, 18 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 18:27
Τρι, 17 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 20:01