Russian firms bid for Iraq energy tenders

Three large Russian energy companies have filed bids for oilfield tenders in Iraq, a Russian Fuel and Energy official said on Wednesday. “The bids have been filed by Rosneft, Bashneft and LUKoil,” the ministry’s Deputy Department Director Talyat Aliyev said, without disclosing details. Iraq has put up 12 oil and gas blocks for tenders. The deposits mainly contain gas and only 30 percent of them have crude oil reserves. The blocks’ reserves are estimated at 29 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. In 2009, a consortium made up of Russia’s largest private oil company LUKoil and Norway's Statoil won a tender to develop one of the world's largest oilfields, West Qurna-2, with recoverable reserves estimated at 12.9 billion barrels of oil. LUKoil plans to launch production at the field in early 2014.