BAGHDAD — During an auction of Iraq’s best undeveloped oil fields that concluded Saturday, Baghdad awarded international companies development rights to seven fields that within a few years could nearly double the country’s oil production.
The revenues from production would be critical to helping this oil-dependent country rebuild from the war, but significant obstacles remain to the development of the fields, including continuing violence.
While ExxonMobil and other American-based oil companies registered for the auction, none came away with a development deal on Friday or Saturday. But both ExxonMobil and California-based Occidental Petroleum are part of groups that have recently won oil field deals in Iraq.
After a week during which bombings killed more than 100 people in a single day in Baghdad, the government seized on the auction — conducted under intense security — as an unmitigated success that would be felt for generations.
“Now the Iraqi people can be assured of their future, the futures of their sons and the futures of their grandsons,” said Hussain al-Shahristani, Iraq’s oil minister, who was embattled before the auction for failing to significantly increase the country’s oil production levels, which stands at 2.5 million barrels a day.
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