Russia’s Gazprom Neft and its partners developing Iraq’s Badra oilfield plan to invest a further $2.5bn in the project until 2030, Gazprom Neft chief executive Alexander Dyukov said yesterday.
So far, investments by an international consortium which includes Gazprom Neft, South Korea’s Kogas, Malaysia’s Petronas, and Turkey’s TPAO, have amounted to $4.0bn.
Gazprom Neft is the project operator.
The oilfield is now producing 85,000 bpd, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said.
Its associated gas plant would increase output to 50mn cubic feet (mcf)/day in the first quarter of 2018, up from 35 mcf/day now, he added.
Iraq could import natural gas from Iran to be processed at the Badra gas facility, al-Luaibi said. 
The head of Iraq’s state oil marketer SOMO is currently holding talks in Iran to determine a start date for oil exports from Iraq’s Kirkuk oilfields, al-Luaibi said.
An oil official told Reuters last week that some Kirkuk crude would be shipped “in the near future” by trucks to Iran’s Kermanshah refinery.