Shareholders alongside Exxon Mobil include PetroChina (32.7%), Japan’s Itochu (19.6 %), Indonesia’s Pertamina (10 %) and Iraq’s Oil Exploration Company (5 %).
If a buyer can be found West Qurna-1 – an oilfield in southern Basrah province with oil reserves of more than 20 billion barrels – it will not be the first time Exxon sells its shares partially or in full in an Iraqi oil asset.
In 2018, the company sold 32 % of its Baeshiqa licence in Iraqi Kuristan to DNO oil and gas operator of Norway and a further 32 % last February. As a new licence operator, DNO drilled two test wells – Zartik-1 and Baeshiqa-1.
“The Company currently estimates gross licence contingent recoverable resources from…the tested zones in the two wells ranging from 12 million barrels of oil (1C) to 156 million barrels of oil (3C)…,” DNO said in a statement in February.
Alongside with PetroChina, ExxonMobil also took part in talks on a project to supply seawater from the Gulf to the Southern Iraq Integrated Project aimed at eliminating water shortages.
Successful implementation of that project will increase production at two major oil fields in Basrah – Ratawi and Nahr Bin Umar – from combined levels of 80,000 bpd to 500,000 bpd, according to figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA). But the project for the moment remains on paper.
