Anglo-Dutch oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell has announced that production at its Majnoon oilfield in Iraq has risen to 175,000 bpd
Majnoon is one of four giant southern fields vital to Iraq’s plan to double output, which currently stands at around three million bpd, the company said.
The 12bn barrel oilfield was pumping about 45,000 bpd when Shell took over in 2010, but the company had suspended operations to carry out maintenance work.
Hussein al-Shahristani, deputy Prime Minister for Energy Affairs, said, “Production from this field will be 200,000 bpd during the next few days and the production of al-Gharraf field of 100,000 bpd to be added to it, which means 300,000 bpd will be added to Iraq’s crude production and export.”
OPEC's second-biggest producer expects its output to rise by 400,000 bpd by the end of this year, with Majnoon providing a large part of that.
Iraq signed a series of service contracts with major oil companies such as Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Total at the end of 2009 to develop its oilfields.
The development of the neighbouring Rumaila, Zubair and West Qurna-1 oilfields has already added 600,000 bpd, the country's Oil Ministry said.
