On May 11, 2024, in the fifth and sixth rounds of oil and gas blocks bidding held in Baghdad, Iraq, ZPEC successfully won the bid for the East Baghdad Field Northern Extension Block (EBN Block) and the Middle Euphrates Block (MF Block). This is another historic breakthrough made by ZPEC in the upstream exploration, development, and production market of the "Belt and Road" countries after acquiring the Wensu Block in Xinjiang Province, China and the Tenge and Coastal oilfields in Kazakhstan.

This bidding event received great attention from the Iraqi government. The Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Petroleum Hayan Abdul Ghani, and other leaders attended the event. The event attracted more than 500 people from BP, ENI, Gazprom, Lukoil, Qatar Energy, etc. Twenty two international energy giants, as well as multiple institutions, participated.

In order to ensure the smooth progress of the bidding work, ZPEC Iraq Oil and Gas Block Evaluation Team overcame the difficulties of multiple evaluation projects, tight time, and heavy workload. They worked day and night to carry out seismic data interpretation, logging data digitization and processing, reserve calculation, exploration and production plan preparation, project economic evaluation, and other work, which provided strong support for this bidding.  

EBN Block, as the first block to be transferred at the bidding meeting, attracted the attention of many oil companies. The block is located in Baghdad and Salahuddin Provinces in central Iraq, with a total area of 231 square kilometers. Another MF block is located in Najaf and Karbala Provinces in central Iraq, with a total area of 1,073 square kilometers. After project video display, quotation bidding, on-site bid opening, and other links, ZPEC won the competition with other oil companies, successfully winning the development rights to these two blocks.

As soon as possible, ZPEC will carry out the next step of contract negotiation and signing with the Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum based on the relevant policies of Iraq’s oil and gas field development and the company’s actual conditions.

The bidding activity, held by the Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum, has attracted widespread attention from the international community. Lu Guozhu, ZPEC Bidding Representative and the Marketing Director of ZPEC, said in interviews with the Iraqi News Agency, Qatar TV, and other media, "Since 2012, ZPEC Group has undertaken drilling and completion jobs in Iraq, and we look forward to carrying out more work in Iraq. We are pleased to have won contracts in the tender for the fifth and sixth licensing rounds and look forward to signing the contracts and starting the development work on both blocks soon.”

Iraq’s fifth round and the entire sixth round of licenses bidding include a total of 29 oil and natural gas exploration blocks distributed in 12 provinces. The Iraqi government intends to provide local people with more employment opportunities and promote local economic and social development.

(Hao Donglei)