Iraq government is considering new incentives, including offering majority stakes in joint ventures, for foreign oil companies to develop country's huge oil and gas fields, a media report said today.
Foreign companies could own as much as 75 per cent in the new ventures, the New York Times said quoting Iraqi officials as saying.
"There was now broad agreement that Iraq needed new approaches to attract more interest from foreign oil corporations. But what those paths are we left to be decided," the newspaper quoted Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, PM Maliki's oil adviser, as saying.
Iraq is not proposing to offer ownership stakes in oil or gas fields to foreign companies as country's new constitution would forbid this.
Rather, international companies would own a larger share in the companies that would be created to develop and exploit the oil fields in the country, the paper said.
Until now, Iraq had offered stakes of no more than 49 per cent in new joint ventures in its negotiations with dozens of international companies like Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, the paper said.
Under a formal process created last year, companies have been asked to bid openly for the stake to take part in expanding Iraq's oil production.
