MOSCOW, April 24 (UPI) -- Russian oil company Lukoil expects to produce around 150,000 barrels of oil per day from the West Qurna-2 field in Iraq by January, the chief executive said.
Lukoil Chief Executive Officer Vagit Alekperov traveled to Iraq in January to discuss output from the West Qurna-2 field. Lukoil has a 75 percent stake in the project.
Alekperov said development plans were moving as expected with major developments forecast by 2014.
"The program of developing the oilfield infrastructure is proceeding according to schedule and work is ongoing at all the sites," he was quoted by Russia's state-owned news agency RIA Novosti as saying. "From Jan. 1, we will be ready to produce 150,000 barrels per day."
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.
Exxon, Chevron and French supermajor Total are operating the West Qurna-1 oil field. All three have been sources of frustration for Baghdad as they seek more work with the semiautonomous Kurdish government, which is at odds with the central government over oil sector regulation.
