Shafaq News/ The Iraqi Ministry of Oil has signed a deal with China's Sinopec to develop Iraq's Mansuriya gas field near the borders with Iran.

In a statement to the press on the sidelines of the signing ceremony on Thursday, Minister of Oil Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar Ismail said that the state-owned Basra Oil Company will hold 51% stake and the Sinopec will bold 49%.

Sinopec will help Iraq capture and process natural gas from the field and boost output to 300 million cubic feet of gas per day (mcf/d) as a targeted production level.

"The field will provide enough gas to generate 1000 Megawatts of electricity," he said, "the company will secure the financial, technical, and technological support to the Chinese company. The Governorate of Diyala will secure a safe environment for the field's investment."

"In the past five years, Iraq lost 15 billion dollars from importing gas to generate electricity from Iran. It also lost 190 thousand oil barrels to run the [production] plants," he added.

The head of the Contracts and Licensing Department at the Ministry said that the Basra Oil Company has 51% of the contract and will have the same share of revenues. The payments will range between 30 to 70%. This way, If the oil prices drop, the Iraqi state would not be in a difficult situation, and it can still secure 70% of the revenues."

Sinopec's representative in Iraq said that Chinese companies invested 20 billion dollars in Iraq in 2021.

He added that the company will deploy top qualification technologies and start providing the product as soon as possible.

In 2020, Iraq canceled a contract signed with a group led by Turkish Petroleum Corp (TPAO) to develop the field and invited international energy companies to compete to develop it.

Sinopec won the contract in a bidding round held at the oil ministry headquarters in Baghdad in April 2021.