Friday, May 11, 2012
TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. (1662.TO) said Friday that it plans to boost capital investment in the fiscal year that began April 1 by 40% from a year earlier, to Y33.4 billion ($420 million).
Much of the increased investment will go to the giant Garraf oil field in Iraq, where development work has been intensifying, said Hiroshi Sato, executive vice president at the Japanese upstream company, which is better known as Japex.
"We have drilled five wells by now, and plan to start production when we finish drilling seven, probably by the end of September," Sato said, without specifying target initial production levels.
Japex has a 30% stake in Garraf, while Malaysia's national oil company Petroliam Nasional Bhd., or Petronas, has 45% as the operator. Iraq's state-owned South Oil Co. has the remaining 25%.
Garraf has estimated proven oil reserves of 1 billion barrels. The Petronas-Japex consortium was awarded exploration and production rights to the field in Iraq's second oil block bidding round held in December 2009.
The consortium plans to take oil production to a peak of 230,000 barrels a day; it will receive a fee of $1.49 for each barrel of oil extracted from Garraf under the terms of its contract with the Iraqi government.
-By Mari Iwata, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-6269-2798; mari.iwata@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
11-05-12 0831GMT
