PARIS, May 29 (UPI) -- First oil from the West Qurna-2 oil field in southern Iraq is expected within six months, Russian oil company Lukoil Vice President Andrei Kuzyaev said.
The West Qurna complex is near the Iraqi port city of Basra. The field is estimated to hold as much as 14 billion barrels of recoverable reserves, making it among the largest undeveloped fields in the world.
Kuzyaev said from the sidelines of an investment conference in Paris that Lukoil plans to invest $4 billion in the project with the aim of starting production soon.
"We'll invest $4 billion in West Qurna," he was quoted by Russian news agency RIA Novosti as saying. "We plan to produce the first oil at the end of this year and at the beginning of next year."
Lukoil last month said it expects to produce around 150,000 barrels of oil per day from the West Qurna-2 field.
The company signed a 20-year contract in 2010 to develop the field alongside Iraqi state-owned North Oil Co.
Exxon, Chevron and French supermajor Total operate the West Qurna-1 oil field.
