Confident: Vagit Alekperov
Lukoil keeps faith with Baghdad
Russian producer Lukoil said today it was confident after meeting Iraqi officials that the country's auction for service contracts in its prized oilfields will be held as planned at the end of June.
Lukoil chief executive Vagit Alekperov also reconfirmed his company's wish to take part in the bidding, in which development contracts for Iraq's six largest oil producing fields and two undeveloped gas fields are on offer.
"We are very convinced that the Iraqi government has absolutely confirmed the holding of the first bidding round at the end of the month," Alekperov told reporters after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Oil Minister Hussain Shahristani.
"I expressed the wish of the company to take part in the first bidding round," he said, speaking through an interpreter.
The auction for the contracts, which pay oil developers a fixed fee rather than a share of oil revenues, had been thrown into doubt by objections from parliament and Iraq's South Oil Company, which produces the bulk of Iraqi oil exports, a reuters report said.
Shahristani and senior executives from the South Oil Company have been summoned by parliament to answer questions about the contracts, which are due to be auctioned in two bidding rounds.
Shahristani is under fire for not boosting Iraqi production quickly enough. Crude output is at 2.3 million to 2.4 million barrels per day, slightly lower than the rate under Saddam Hussein.
Some parliamentarians criticise the oil contracts as being too close to production sharing deals, rather than fixed-fee service contracts. Others prefer production sharing deals.
In a statement, Maliki welcomed Lukoil's interest.
"We welcome international companies to work in Iraq, including Russian companies. Lukoil is at the head of the companies we welcome for its high level of expertise," Reuters quoted him as saying.