Wednesday, January 04, 2012 Iraq Delays Energy Bidding Round
Iraq has postponed by a month its fourth oil-and-gas bidding round, to April 11-12, when it will auction 12 promising exploration blocks to international companies, a senior Oil Ministry official said Wednesday.
It had previously said that the fourth auction would be held March 7-8.
"We have decided to delay...in response to requests from companies to give them more time to study conditions of the licensing round and the draft contract model," Abdul Mahdy al-Ameedi, head of the Oil Ministry's Petroleum Contracts and Licensing Directorate, told Dow Jones Newswires.
Ameedi said that 37 international firms, including some of the world's largest, have paid participation fees and bought data packages for the 12 blocks. He named only two of nine firms that didn't buy these packages--Japan's Itochu and TNK BP.
Some 46 energy companies have qualified to participate in the bidding round, which is expected to add 29 trillion cubic feet of gas and 10 billion barrels of oil.
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