• Home
• /
• Local business

Crude Firms to Scramble for Iraq Deals on Live TV

“This is shaping up to be unlike anything I have ever been involved in,” said one senior executive for a major western oil company. “It is quite unique and will be some theatre. I don’t think any of us really know how this is going to work out.”

Bids for contracts for six of Iraq’s largest oilfields and two untapped gas fields will be opened in front of the cameras and the world’s media on June 29 and 30 in Baghdad. The bids will be compared and contracts awarded there and then.

After the first contract is awarded, competing firms would have a chance to go back and revise the terms of their next bid.

That is where the process could come to resemble a live TV game show.

“Firms are going to have to break alliances and broker new ones there and then, bid by bid, depending on what they win or lose,” said another oil executive working on the bidding process.

“They will also have to change bids under time pressure. That could become a bit unseemly if it happens in front of the cameras.”

The terms of the tender limit the 32 competing firms to just one contract as lead partner or field operator. They can participate in three contracts as members of consortia.