Russia’s Gazprom Neft has announced that it has plans to start commercial oil production in Q1 2014 at its Badra oilfield in Iraq
The company said that it hopes for an average output of 15,000 bpd this year. It is also targeting hydrocarbon production of 100mn tonnes of oil equivalent by 2020, up 60 per cent from the current 62.2mn tonnes in 2013 in the country.
Vadim Yakovlev, first deputy chief executive of Gazprom Neft, said, “We plan to start production at Badra in the spring this year. The target of this year is to reach output of 15,000 bpd.”
The output at Badra has been estimated to reach 170,000 bpd by 2017. The oilfield is located in the Wassit Province in eastern Iraq with an estimated three billion barrels of oil in place. The Russian company had submitted a tender in December 2009 and signed a contract with the federal government of Iraq in January 2010 to develop the oilfield.
Yakovlev added that the company plans to announce a commercial discovery at Garmian oilblock in Kurdistan Region of Iraq and start test production at the block this year but declined to elaborate.
Kurdistan Region of Iraq alone may produce up to 200,000 bpd at Gazprom Neft's projects by 2020, he added.
