Projects Today reported that OVL in collaboration with Russia's Gazprom and Turkish Petroleum has submitted its bid for Zubair oil field in Iraq.

Apart from OVL, 3 other consortiums, led by BP (UK), Exxon Mobil (USA) and ENI (Italy) have submitted bids for the same oil field. Anglo Dutch Shell, Sinopec of China and Total of France have also evinced interest in the oil field.

The proposed oil field which now produces 230,000 barrel per day has the capacity to ramp up production to 400,000 barrel per day. Iraq is offering 20 year service contracts to extract resources from four oil blocks including Zubair and 2 gas blocks, which have a combined oil equivalent reserve of 115 billion barrels.

However, Iraq has opened up its hydrocarbon rich oil and gas blocks for international oil companies with an aim to increase its daily oil production from 2.4 million barrels to over four million by 2014.

(Sourced from Projects Today)