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Monday, November 22, 2010

Iraq Oil Reserves Jumped Over Iran’s

Iraq increased the proven oil reserves with new data suggesting its proven oil reserves have reached 143.1 billion barrels of oil, up from a previous 115 billion barrels. The new figure of oil represents a 24-percent increase, the first update since 2001.

It would mean Iraq has the world's second largest reserves according to statistics on the OPEC website. Iraq would take second place from Iran, which has 137.01 billion barrels of proven reserves, but would still be far behind Saudi Arabia, which has 264.59 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, according to OPEC data.

These were the results of deep surveys carried out by the ministry's oil reservoir company and international companies which signed contracts with Iraq. Most of these figures were the result of surveys conducted by these international companies, specially at oil fields such as West Qurna and Zubair.

Iraq has signed 12 deals with international oil companies to ramp up output capacity to about 12 million barrels a day from around 2.4 million barrels a day. Iraq now had 66 oilfields, including seven supergiant fields. Total, BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil, Lukoil, Eni, Japan Petroleum Exploration and China National Petroleum Corp., have signed on to develop Iraq's vast oil fields.

The largest Iraqi oil field was West Qurna, with total proven oil reserves of 43 billion barrels, making it the second biggest oilfield in the world. West Qurna is divided in two--Phase 1 and Phase 2. Exxon Mobil led a consortium won a deal to develop Phase 1, while Lukoil to develop Phase 2.

BP and CNPC are developing Rumaila, the second-largest Iraqi oil field. It has total proven reserves of 17 billion barrels. Shell won the right to develop Majnoon, comes third with proven reserves of 11 billion barrels of oil.

71% of Iraq's total oil reserves are located in the southern Iraqi governorates, particularly in Basra. Some 20% of the reserves are in northern governorate particularly in Kirkuk, while the remaining 9% are located in central Iraq.

The new reserve figure doesn't include the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq. The region's authorities have estimated reserves in their Kurdistan region to be around 40 billion barrels.

Iraq depends on crude oil exports for 95 percent of government revenue, and is trying to upgrade outdated infrastructure and spur economic growth after being crippled by decades of conflict and sanctions.

The ministry will update Iraqi oil reserves on yearly bases from now on, expects the reserves to increase.

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