Oil contracts awarded to international companies have fetched Iraq nearly $740 billion over the past decade, an Iraq oil official was quoted on Monday as saying. 

The contracts, which include oil and gas field development, have added between 1.7-3 million barrels per day (mbpd) to the OPEC member’s crude output capacity, said Ali Maarij, director of oil project permits at the Iraqi Oil Ministry. 

“The oil contracts awarded to foreign firms have added 1.7-3 mbpd to Iraq’s crude production capacity and fetched nearly $740 billion to its coffers since 2010,” Maarij told Iraq’s Shafaq News network. 

He said most of the contracts are in South Iraq and that revenue made by the foreign contracts did not exceed 1.2% of the total oil export earnings during that period. 

Iraq, OPEC’s second largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, has been locked in a post-war drive to rehabilitate its oil industry and other sector. 

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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