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Iraq says proven oil reserves rise to 143 bln barrels

04 October 2010 13:10 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA-Economics. Iraq said on Monday its proven oil reserves had risen to 143 billion barrels as work by international oil companies started to yield results, Straits Times reported.

Iraq’s proven reserves had been 115 billion barrels, already the world’s third largest, but the data on which that figure was based was believed to be outdated.

The new reserve figure was reached with the help of international oil companies working at 12 fields in Iraq, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said in a news conference.

’The rise in reserves from West Qurna and Zubair has considerably contributed to the rise,’ Shahristani said, adding that the West Qurna field had reserves of 43.302 bln barrels, making it the second largest field in the world.

The oil ministry has been carrying out 3D seismic surveys to update its oil reserves data.

Oil majors are moving ahead with a series of deals to unlock reserves that could boost Iraq’s production capacity to Saudi Arabia’s level of 12 million barrels per day from 2.5 million bpd now.