Russia's LUKoil wins auction to develop Iraqi oil field

[FarCenter]

Russia's largest independent oil producer LUKoil won an auction on Saturday for a contract to develop one of Iraq's largest oil fields.

Iraq also awarded contracts to Anglo-Dutch oil major Shell, China's CNPC and Malaysia's Petronas during the two-day sale.

LUKoil will develop the 12.88 billion-barrel West Qurna-2 field in the Basra province as a consortium with StatoilHydro. The Russian company holds an 85% stake in the consortium, and the Norwegian oil producer has 15%. They aim to bring production to 1.8 million barrels per day.

<SNIP>

On Friday, the Majnoon field in the country's south, with reserves of 12.6 billion barrels was auctioned to Shell and Petronas.

CNPC led a consortium with Petronas and Total that won a contract on Friday for the Halfaya field in southern Iraq, with reserves of 4.1 billion barrels.

http://en.rian.ru/business/20091212/157212065.html

[UTUSN]

1. Oooooo, so THAT's why we went there!1 So Shrub just wanted to even things with Saddam for Poppy

and we need to get off our oil addiction!1