Zubair & West Qurna-1 Gone.

The Oil Ministry, however, has recently managed to get takers for two of the first auction's oilfields at service fees it had set: $1.90/b for West Qurna-1 and $2/b for Zubair. Both fields lie in the south of the country.

West Qurna-1 was bid for by two competing consortia - ExxonMobil/Shell, offering to raise the field's 258,000 b/d output to 2.1m b/d, though its asking fee originally was $4/b; and LUKoil/ConocoPhillips, to raise the field's output to 1.5m b/d and its original asking fee was $6.49/b. The Oil Ministry favours the first consortium, though it has let LUKoil know that it would seriously look into its bid for West Qurna-2 in the second round. West Qurna-1's recoverable reserves were put at 9bn barrels.

The $2/b for Zubair was accepted by a JV of ENI (40%), Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) and Korea Gas Co. (Kogas) together to hold 35%, with the remaining 25% to be held by an Oil Ministry-set Iraqi firm. The Oil Ministry this week signed the contract with this group. ENI-led group will raise Zubair's output from 195,000 b/d to 1.125m b/d. This group's asking fee was $4.80/b. Zubair's recoverable reserves were put at 4.4bn barrels.