State-owned Sinochem Group, China's fourth-largest oil company by assets, said Friday that Baghdad has approved its participation in the second round of bidding for Iraqi oil and gas fields, which will be held in November.
Sinochem Group, which has overseas exploration and production rights in 14 oil and gas blocks in six countries, said in a statement it is now qualified to bid on technical service contracts but didn't specify which fields it is interested in.
The Iraqi government is offering contracts for 10 groups of oil fields this November, including the West Qurna phase 2, Majnoon and East Baghdad fields.
Iraq has proposed better contract terms than in the first round - terms that many international oil companies balked at in June, when eight oil and gas fields were offered and only the giant Rumaila field in southern Iraq was awarded - to a consortium of BP PLC (BP) and China National Petroleum Corp.
Executives of major Chinese oil companies including CNPC, China Petrochemical Corp. and China National Offshore Oil Corp. said last month they were considering taking part in the second round, but the commercial terms will still determine whether they will accept any contracts.
The Iraqi oil ministry said earlier this month it might blacklist Sinopec Group from participating in the second round if it confirmed the company's acquisition of Addax Petroleum Corp. (AXC.T).
Addax had signed an exploration and development contract with Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government, angering Baghdad.
Iraq, which has the world's third-largest oil reserves, hopes to boost its crude output capacity to 4.5 million barrels a day by 2012 from 2.4 million barrels a day through the offering of contracts to international oil companies.