Thirteen firms to bid in Iraq's Oct. 20 gas auction

Thirteen firms to bid in Iraq’s Oct. 20 gas auction

The bidding round has been delayed twice to give companies more time to study contract terms.

October 11, 2010 3:00 by Reuters

Thirteen companies have qualified to bid in Iraq’s Oct. 20 auction for three gas fields and no others will be allowed to take part, a senior oil official said on Monday.

Iraq will tender gas fields at Akkas in the western desert, Iraq’s Sunni heartland and once an al Qaeda stronghold, Mansuriyah near the Iranian border in volatile Diyala province, and Siba in the relatively peaceful southern oil hub of Basra.

The three fields together have estimated reserves of around 11.23 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The bidding round has been delayed twice to give companies more time to study contract terms.

“Thirteen companies will take part in the gas auction and no more firms will be allowed,” Abdul-Mahdy al-Ameedi, head of the Iraqi oil ministry’s licensing and contracting office, told Reuters.

These are the 13 companies that were qualified to take part: Italy’s Edison and ENI , France’s Total , South Korea’s KOGAS , Japan’s Mitsubishi , state-run Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO), Japan’s Itochu , Kazakhstan state oil and gas company KazMunaiGas, Russia’s TNK-BP , Norway’s StatoilHydro, India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp ONGC.BO and Kuwait Energy.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; editing by Jim Loney)