The Iraqi government and the American company Halliburton, a services giant for the oil industry, signed an agreement on Sunday for the management of two oil fields in the south of the country, which seeks to increase its hydrocarbon production.
The state-owned Basra Oil Company has signed a joint operating agreement with the American company Halliburton for the Bin Omar and Sinbad fields, located in Basra province, the Oil Ministry said in a statement.
This agreement is part of Baghdad’s ambitions “to increase oil and gas production”, underlined the Minister of Oil, Bassem Khodeir, quoted in the text.
The goal is to extract 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) more than currently from the Bin Omar field and 80,000 to 100,000 more from the Sinbad field within five years, according to him.
The announcement comes as Iraq, alongside Saudi Arabia, Russia and four other OPEC+ members, decided to raise its oil production quotas again on Sunday, amid encouraging signals regarding shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after the Middle East war.
This decision was supported by the new government led by Ali al-Zaidi, while Iraq derives 90% of its budgetary revenues from oil exports.
Invited to the White House in mid-July, Mr. al-Zaïdi seeks to attract investors after years of conflicts which devastated the country’s infrastructure, including the American-British invasion of 2003 which overthrew the power of Saddam Hussein.
Before the Middle East war began in late February, Iraq produced around four million barrels per day, and exported an average of 3.5 million barrels daily, mainly through the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil usually passes.
