Iraq plans to award oil and gas exploration and development contracts in 11 new blocks on April 15, oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said on Sunday, Al Jazeera reports.

Iraq had initially set June 21 as the date to open the bids for the new blocks, located in border areas with Iran and Kuwait, and in offshore Gulf waters.

Bidding documents will be made available to oil companies planning to make offers on April 13, Jihad told the Reuters news agency. The offers will have to be submitted on April 15 and the winners will be announced the same day, he added.

The oil ministry announced on Thursday measures to reduce the fees received by the oil companies from the government in the new contracts.

The new contracts will exclude oil by-products from the companies' revenues, establish a linkage between prevailing oil prices and their remuneration, and introduce a royalty element. </s> Iraq plans to award oil and gas exploration and development contracts in 11 new blocks on April 15, oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said on Sunday.

Iraq had initially set June 21 as the date to open the bids for the new blocks, located in border areas with Iran and Kuwait, and in offshore Gulf waters.

Bidding documents will be made available to oil companies planning to make offers on April 13, Jihad told Reuters. The offers will have to be submitted on April 15 and the winners will be announced the same day, he added.

The oil ministry announced on Thursday measures to reduce the fees received by the oil companies from the government in the new contracts.

The new contracts will exclude oil by-products from the companies' revenues, establish a linkage between prevailing oil prices and their remuneration, and introduce a royalty element.

Oil producers in Iraq currently receive a fee from the government linked to production increases, which include crude and oil by-products such as liquefied petroleum gas and dry gas. </s> BAGHDAD, April 1 (Reuters) - Iraq plans to award oil and gas exploration and development contracts in 11 new blocks on April 15, oil ministry spokemsan Asim Jihad said on Sunday.

Bidding documents will be made available to oil companies planning to make offers on April 13, he told Reuters. The offers will have to be subitted on April 15 and the winners will be announced the same day, he added.

Iraq had initially set June 21 as the date to open the bids. (Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Mark Potter) </s> BAGHDAD, April 1 (Reuters) - Iraq plans to award oil and gas exploration and development contracts in 11 new blocks on April 15, oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said on Sunday.

Iraq had initially set June 21 as the date to open the bids for the new blocks, located in border areas with Iran and Kuwait, and in offshore Gulf waters.

Bidding documents will be made available to oil companies planning to make offers on April 13, Jihad told Reuters. The offers will have to be submitted on April 15 and the winners will be announced the same day, he added.

The oil ministry announced on Thursday measures to reduce the fees received by the oil companies from the government in the new contracts.

The new contracts will exclude oil by-products from the companies' revenues, establish a linkage between prevailing oil prices and their remuneration, and introduce a royalty element.

Oil producers in Iraq currently receive a fee from the government linked to production increases, which include crude and oil by-products such as liquefied petroleum gas and dry gas.

OPEC's second largest producer, after Saudi Arabia, Iraq decided to change the contracts after a glut caused oil prices to crash in 2014, reducing Baghdad's ability to pay the fees.

Companies including BP, Exxon Mobil, Eni , Total and Royal Dutch Shell helped Iraq grow its production in the past decade by over 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) to about 4.7 million bpd.

The semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government produces oil and gas from fields under its control in northern Iraq under a production sharing model more profitable to companies.

The new contracts offered by Baghdad will also set a time limit for companies to end gas flaring from oil fields they develop on territory under its control.

Iraq continues to flare some of the gas extracted alongside crude oil at its fields because it lacks the facilities to process it into fuel for local consumption or exports.

Iraq hopes to end gas flaring by 2021, which costs nearly $2.5 billion in lost revenue for the government and would be sufficient to meet most of its unmet needs for gas-based power generation, according to the World Bank. (Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Mark Potter) </s> Baku. 30 January. REPORT.AZ/ Iran has cancelled an oil conference in London next month, when Tehran was expected to reveal its new oil and gas contracts to investors, apparently over a delay in getting visas, Report informs citing the Reuters deputy head of the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) Ali Kardor said that.

The deputy head of the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) also said foreign companies would be invited in May to bid for new oil contracts.

"The London conference has been cancelled because the British embassy in Tehran could not issue visas for representatives of Iranian companies as its visa section has yet to become active," Ali Kardor told the weekly. "And they had to acquire their visas from a third country."

The conference has been postponed five times because of uncertainty over sanctions. In September, Iranian oil ministry officials said the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) would be revealed in London in Feb. 22-24. </s> BAGHDAD, April 1 (Reuters) - The Iraqi cabinet on Sunday approved a plan to raise the nation's crude oil output capacity to 6.5 million barrels per day by 2022, according to a government statement.

Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said in January capacity was currently close to 5 million bpd.

The country is producing more than 4.4 million bpd in line with an agreement between the 14-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other exporters including Russia to cut supply to boost oil prices.

OPEC's second-largest producer, after Saudi Arabia, Iraq plans to award oil and gas exploration and development contracts in 11 new blocks on April 15.

The Iraqi government depends on the sector for more than 90 percent of its income. (Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Andrew Roche) </s> Baghdad has approved an increase in Iraq’s crude oil production capacity to as much as 6.5 million bpd by 2022. This compares to a current production capacity of below 5 million barrels and production rates—as reported by the local energy ministry—of around 4.4 million bpd as per its OPEC quota.

Crude oil export income accounts for the bulk of government revenues and is likely to continue to do so for the observable future as diversification options are few and the funds needed for a shift away from oil can only come from oil.

This huge dependence on crude revenues has made Iraq the focus of doubts around compliance with the 2016 OPEC+ production cut deal, with many expecting that the cartel’s number-two producer will be the first to start cheating.

Indeed, Iraq has fallen consistently short of complying with its quota of 4.35 million bpd, but its underperformance has been more than offset by Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Iraq was also the hardest OPEC member to convince that the cuts were necessary. Now the country is in line, apparently sticking to whatever OPEC decides in terms of further extensions of the deal. At the same time, however, it is planning a tender for 11 new fields later this month. Related: EV Revolution Could Cost Thousands Of Jobs

The tender, to take place in mid-April, will offer fields in the eastern and southern parts of Iraq. According to the energy ministry, 13 foreign oil companies have signed up for the event, at which the fields will be announced.

Meanwhile, Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luiebi recently told media that Iraq’s proven crude oil reserves could be much higher than previously estimated. Last year, Iraq updated the estimate for its proven reserves to 153 billion barrels from 143 billion barrels, but if Luiebi is right, the figure could actually be double the 2017 estimate. This would make Iraq the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world.
• None An Oil Price Rally Is Likely </s> April 4 (UPI) -- An oil and gas discovery announced during the weekend off the coast of Bahrain could hold at least 80 billion barrels, the government announced Wednesday.

Bahraini Oil Minister Mohamed bin Khalifa al-Khalifa announced during the weekend that a "substantial" oil and natural gas discovery was made off the nation's west coast. The new resource is forecast to contain highly significant quantities of tight oil and deep gas, understood to "dwarf" Bahrain's current reserves.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Bahrain holds 124.6 million barrels of oil reserves, which ranks 27th in the world. The state-run oil and gas authority said Wednesday the discovery holds at least 80 billion barrels of oil.

Bahraini Oil Minister Mohammed bin Khalifa al-Khalifa said the find was highly significant and could contain an additional 20 trillion cubic feet in natural gas reserves.

"Agreement has been reached with Halliburton to commence drilling on two further appraisal wells in 2018, to further evaluate reservoir potential, optimize completions, and initiate long-term production," he was quoted by the official Bahrain News Agency as saying.

Halliburton had no public comment on the announcement. The government said it planned to start drilling into the prospects by August.

First oil from the Bahrain oil field came in 1932 at a rate of 9,500 barrels of oil per day. At its peak in 1970, capacity was around 79,000 barrels per day.

Total production from Bahrain, which isn't a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is around 200,000 barrels per day. Output from the Bahrain oil field started to decline about a decade ago and most of the offshore oil comes from the Abu Saafa field, which yields around 150,000 barrels per day.

The discovery, Khalij al-Bahrain, could be put into production within the next five years. </s> Independent appraisals by US-based oil consultants DeGolyer and MacNaughton and oilfield services company Halliburton had confirmed Bahrain’s find with tight oil amounting to at least 80 billion barrels, and deep gas reserves in the region of 10-20 trillion cubic feet. An agreement has been reached with Halliburton to commence drilling on two further appraisal wells in 2018, to further evaluate reservoir potential, optimise completions, and initiate long-term production al-Khalifa said during a press conference.

In light of Bahrain’s junk rating by all three major credit ratings agencies, the newly discovered resource is expected to provide significant and long-term positive benefits to the kingdom’s economy.

Sadad al-Husseini, a former senior executive at Saudi Aramco and now an energy consultant, said the discovery was positive news for Bahrain, but more data gathering, evaluation and well testing needed to follow to determine whether there are any future commercial opportunities in the resources, according to Reuters.

He said that converting resource estimates to reserves is an intense and costly process and not all the resources may ultimately be upgraded to reserves and that the additional drilling and data gathering will serve to improve the accuracy and reliability of the estimate.

Bahrain has approximately 124.6 million barrels of proven reserves, and currently gets it oil revenues from two fields: the onshore Bahrain field, and the offshore Abu Safah field, which is shared jointly with Saudi Arabia. The Bahrain field, produced around 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2015, according to the US Energy Information Administration, and Bahrain and Saudi Arabia split annual revenues from the 300,000 bpd Abu Safah offshore field where production is overseen by Saudi Aramco.

The Bahraini government earned $4.3 billion in oil and gas revenue last year and ran a budget deficit of $2.7 billion.
Iraq's Oil Ministry brings forward the proposed date for awarding oil exploration contracts for new fields offshore and near the Iranian and Kuwaiti borders to April 15.