Iraq's foreign minister has invited Vagit Alekperov, chief executive of Russian oil producer OAO Lukoil Holdings (LKOH.RS), to visit Iraq for talks on the West Qurna oil field, Lukoil said in a statement.
Hoshyar Zebari met Alekperov in Moscow earlier this week during a visit in which the Russian government agreed to write off $12 billion, or 93%, of Iraq's $12.9 billion debt to Moscow, a gesture that appeared aimed at helping Russian companies win contracts in Iraq.
Lukoil, Russia's top-producing oil company, struck a $3.7 billion deal with former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 1997 to drill at the West Qurna field, which is among the most promising in Iraq, with an estimated reserve capacity of over 4 billion barrels of oil. Saddam severed the contract in 2002, however.
Zebari and Alekperov "discussed the outlooks of Lukoil's operations in Iraq, including West Qurna-11 project," the statement said. "Zebari officially invited Vagit Alekperov to visit the Republic of Iraq in the nearest future."
Lukoil also said its experts carried out a number of studies that included processing of seismic data, evaluation of oil and gas potential of reservoirs, elaboration of field development plans and geological models for several fields in Iraq. It didn't identify these fields.