MEOG: IDC completes well at East Baghdad

The Iraqi Drilling Co. (IDC) announced last week that it had completed the drilling of a well at the East Baghdad oilfield, to the south-east of the capital city.

In a statement, the company said that its technical and engineering teams had drilled the EBS-H-18 well to a depth of 3,509 metres, noting that it was the first of a 27-well drilling campaign targeting the field for its Chinese operator EBS – a local Iraqi subsidiary of China ZhenHua Oil Co. Ltd, itself a subsidiary of the state-owned China North Industries Group (Norinco). IDC is working with China Oilfield Services Ltd (COSL) on the campaign. The Iraqi firm noted that operations were carried out using the IDC 36 rig.

EBS is involved in the development of the 10,000 barrel per day East Baghdad asset as well as the 130,000 bpd Ahdab field. It is understood to be working to ramp up production to a target of 50,000 bpd from the 8bn-barrel field, which is one of many assets where Iraq is looking to raise capacity as part of a state effort to reach 7mn bpd by 2027 from the current level of just under 5mn bpd, with IDC leading the drilling push.

The East Baghdad concession was offered for development by IOCs during Iraq’s second licensing round in December 2009 but received no bids, prompting Baghdad to proceed alone to rehabilitate and raise production at the field.