We will not allow anyone to hamper efforts to develop oil,& gas fields – minister

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahrestani said on Wednesday that all oil and gas fields belong to all Iraqis, asserting that the government will not allow anyone to hamper their development. “The federal government has the authority to develop oil and gas fields and no one has the power to prevent that,” al-Shahrestani said at a press conference held after concluding the third licenses stage. A consortium led by the Turkish Petroleum International Corporation won a deal to develop the gas field of al-Mansouriyah in eastern Iraq, the final field in Iraq’s energy auction on Wednesday. Earlier, a consortium grouping South Korea KoGas and Kazakhstan ’s KazMunuaiGaz, won the right to develop the giant gas field of Akkas in Iraq’s western province of Anbar. The Akkas gas field has 5.6 trillion cubic feet (156 million cubic metres) of natural gas. The field is the first of the three gas fields submitted for bidding in Iraq’s third energy auction in the Oil Ministry. Iraq has proven reserves of 112 trillion cubic feet (3.13 trillion cubic metres) of natural gas, but the country is only producing 1.5 billion cubic feet a day because of the poor infrastructure of the oil and gas industries. SH (P) 1