By NNN-KUNA
London : Oil production in Iraq is at its highest level since the US-led invasion of 2003, reaching 2.4 million barrels a day, thanks largely to improved security measures in the north, The Times newspaper reported Friday.
The country’s Oil Ministry will shortly invite international oil companies to bid for contracts to help Iraq to boost output at its investment-starved “super-giant” oilfields, it said.
Production is expected to pass the pre-war level of 2.6 million barrels by the end of the year, and Hussain Al-Shahristani, the Iraqi Oil Minister, told The Times that he expected production to reach six million barrels a day within four years.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that Iraq’s economy, boosted by rising oil revenues, will grow by more than seven percent this year, compared with 1.3 percent last year.
A new report from the US Inspector-General said that the Iraqi Government will receive a USD 15 billion windfall to help its reconstruction efforts thanks to soaring oil prices.
Al-Shahristani said that the government would not wait for Iraq’s fractious parliament to approve long-delayed legislation providing a legal framework for foreign investment in the oil industry.
The Iraqi government is to invite foreign companies to help the country to develop new fields.
Jeroen van de Veer, the chief executive of the Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell, has confirmed that it was “very interested” in new opportunities in Iraq, which sits on the worlds third largest proven oil reserves.
“We have made various proposals to the government,” he said.
Al-Shahristani suggested that the competition would be intense.
“Everybody in the world, more than 45 companies, have approached us and shown a very keen interest in working with us, the Chinese, Russians, Indians, Brazilians,” he told the daily.
Reliable economic statistics remain almost impossible to collect in Iraq, but US officials said that the government had cut inflation to 5.5 percent from 60 percent a year ago, The Times concluded.