China to join Exxon to develop giant Iraqi oil field

, and that it is having talks with Lukoil to buy a stake in West Qurna-2.

China is already the top foreign player in Iraq's southern oilfields as a deal at West Qurna would boost its dominance and could make PetroChina the biggest single foreign investor there.

An industry source familiar with the firm’s deal with Exxon said in a statement received by “Shafaq News” that "PetroChina will participate in developing the field”.

He added that the announcement of the deal will be within weeks, but he refused to go into details of the agreement between the two biggest energy companies in the world in terms of market value. PetroChina and Exxon declined to comment.

Exxon owns a 60 % stake in West Qurna 1 project of investments amounting to about 50 billion $ and pumps about 480 thousand barrels per day.

Reuters quoted a source in the Russian company Lukoil as saying that PetroChina is having talks with Lukoil to buy a stake in West Qurna-2. The source declined to disclose the size of the stake that is being talked about.

Baghdad signed a series of service contracts in 2009 that committed international oil companies to raising Iraq's oil output by 2017 beyond 12 million bpd - more than Saudi Arabia produces now.