New well drilled in Wassit’s Ahdab oilfield

WASSIT / IraqiNews.com: A Chinese company working on al-Ahdab oilfield project will drill a new well to probe for oil in Wassit province, according to a local official source. “Today, the company began the drilling of its second well in the province,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. The first well has a capacity of 25,000 barrels per day. “Some false media reports have spoken of sabotage acts that allegedly targeted the project and cost the companies millions of dollars in losses,” the source noted. On April 18, a spokesperson for the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, Aasem Jihad, denied the news, saying the company has good relations with the local community. The oil ministry has recently launched a plan to attract foreign companies to invest in Iraq’s oil sector and to increase the country’s output to reach 4-4.5 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2010 if the discovered oilfields – 80 in number – were developed. Kut, the capital city of Wassit province, lies 180 km southeast of Baghdad. SS (P)/SR 2