ExxonMobil announces increase of West Qurna production by 10 percent

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: ExxonMobil announced on Tuesday the increase of its oil production from the West Qurna oilfield in Basra by 10%, according to the company’s regional director. “ExxonMobil held today a press conference to announce that the production from the West Qurna oilfield increased by 10%,” Taha al-Tamimi told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The conference was attended by a number of senior Iraqi officials and representatives from the oil investment companies working in Basra as well as local chieftains,” he added. ExxonMobil, leading developer of the West Qurna I oil field said March 28 that the 10% increase was achieved from the giant field, raising output to 285,000 b/d from baseline production of 244,000 b/d. The increases in production from the giant fields, which has come two years ahead of the contractual time frames, will entitle developers to start receiving payment for costs from the incremental production achieved. But the output rise has strained Iraq’s infrastructure, which is being expanded to absorb the incremental barrels as foreign oil consortia ramp up production to their eventual plateau targets by 2017. Iraq is targeting production capacity of over 13 million b/d within the next six to seven years. Total production in March fell to 2.525 million b/d, a decline of 105,000 b/d from February’s 1.630 million b/d. Exports also fell slightly in March to 2.159 million b/d, 43,000 b/d lower than February exports of 2.202 million b/d, which was the highest export rate since the 2003 war but is still above the critical rate of 2 million b/d. Iraq exported 1.687 million b/d from southern ports in March, down by 21,000 b/d over February’s 1.708 million b/d.   SH (TS)/SR 652