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27-12-12

Russia- LUKoil withdraws bid to buy stake in Iraq's West Qurna-1

(MENAFN) Russia's LUKoil overseas chief, Andrei Kuzyaev, announced that the company withdrew its bid to buy a 60-percent stake in Iraq's West Qurna-1 oil field from US ExxonMobil, reported RIA. Kuzyaev said that Russia's largest privately owned oil firm evaluated all the risks and concluded that since it's already operating the West Qurna-2 project efficiently without a partner, then it would be a great risk for the company to run another project, although the project is still attractive in terms of investment. The West Qurna-2 is considered one of the largest oil fields in the world, with recoverable oil reserves estimated at 12.9 billion barrels. A consortium consisting of LUKoil and Norway's Statoil won a tender in 2009 for the development of the field, however, earlier this year, the Norwegian firm sold its 18.75-percent stake to LUKoil and left the project. At the current time, core shareholders of the West Qurna-2 project are LUKoil, which holds a 75-percent stake, and the Iraqi state-owned North Oil Company with 25 percent. It is worth noting that ExxonMobil said it was selling its stake in the West Qurna-1 oil field, which is located in southern Iraq with oil reserves estimated at 8.7 billion barrels, after a row with the central government of Baghdad over projects in the self-ruling Kurdish region.

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