Trading Firms Among Pre-Qualifiers For Iraq’s Fourth Bidding Round

Trading Firms Among Pre-Qualifiers For Iraq’s Fourth Bidding Round

Baghdad has added six new companies to the list of firms pre-qualified to take part in Iraq’s fourth upstream licensing round. The new firms include the upstream arms of trading companies Vitol and Glencore, as well as UK independent Gulf Sands, UAE independent Dragon Oil, Chinese firm ZhenHua Oil and Romanian state firm Romgaz.

The additions come ahead of an 11-12 September road show in 'Amman, Jordan, where the first draft contracts for the 12 exploration blocks on offer will be presented. US independent Hess, on an initial August list of pre-qualified companies, has been removed as a result of its recent involvement in the upstream of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) area of northern Iraq. Baghdad, which is in dispute with the KRG over the latter’s independent oil policy, has blacklisted foreign oil firms investing in the region’s oil sector. Vitol, in common with Glencore, has a long trading history with Iraq. And in 2008 Vitol, in alliance with US independent Anadarko and the UAE’s Dome, was in negotiations for a development agreement covering the Subba and Luhais fields. Gulf Sands has gas ambitions in Misan province, while ZhenHua has picked up subcontractor work.

Baghdad hopes the exploration round will eventually add 29 trillion cu ft to proven gas reserves and 10bn barrels to oil reserves. Block 9 in Basra province is viewed as the pick of the blocks on offer (MEES, 2 May). This is the first post-2003 bidding round aimed at exploration and will require a special contract. Coming up with a formula that will incentivize investors is likely to be challenging, given Iraq will not accept either production sharing contracts or concessions. The round is scheduled for award in January. For reasons that are unclear, the official list of pre-qualified companies (see below) names CNPC and PetroChina separately, even though the latter is simply the listed arm of CNPC.

Pre-Qualified Companies For Iraq’s Fourth Upstream Licensing Round

The full list of pre-qualified companies is: 1. ATPECO (Japan); 2. Bashneft (Russia); 3. BP (UK); 4. Chevron (US); 5. CNOOC (China); 6. CNPC (China); 7. Dragon Oil (UAE); 8. Edison (Italy); 9. Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (Egypt); 10. Eni (Italy); 11. ExxonMobil (US); 12. Gazprom (Russia); 13. Glencore International (Switzerland); 14. Gulfsands Petroleum (UK); 15. INA (Croatia); 16. Inpex (Japan); 17. Itochu (Japan); 18. Japex (Japan); 19. JOGMEC (Japan); 20. JX Nippon Oil and Gas Exploration Corporation (Japan); 21. Kogas (Korea); 22. Kuwait Energy (Kuwait); 23. Lukoil (Russia); 24. Mitsubishi (Japan); 25. Mitsui Oil (Japan); 26. Mubadala Oil (UAE); 27. Occidental (US); 28. ONGC (India); 29. Pakistan Petroleum (Pakistan); 30. Petro Vietnam E&P (Vietnam); 31. PetroChina (China); 32. Petronas (Malaysia); 33. Premier Oil (UK); 34. Pertamina (Indonesia); 35. PTTEP International Holding Company Ltd (Thailand); 36. Rosneft (Russia); 37. Romgaz (Romania); 38. Shell (Netherlands); 39. Sonangol (Angola); 40. Statoil (Norway); 41. Sumitomo (Japan); 42. TNK-BP (Russia); 43. Total (France); 44. TPAO (Turkey); 45. Vitol (Switzerland); and 46. ZhenHua Oil (China).

Copyright MEES 2011.