The Russian company is among 35 firms listed by the petroleum contracts and licensing office of the Iraqi Oil Ministry, out of 120 companies that submitted their bids in January-February for Iraq's vast oil and gas fields.
"LUKoil, represented by LUKoil Overseas, has qualified for the first licensing round for the development of oil and gas fields in Iraq," LUKoil Overseas said in a statement.
Iraq is planning to launch the first round of tenders in the second quarter of this year.
Iraq and LUKoil agreed earlier this year to set up a working group to update a contract to develop Iraq's largest oil field, West Qurna-2.
The contract to develop the second leg of the oil field was initially signed on March 21, 1997, under the reign of Saddam Hussein. LUKoil operated the first phase of West Qurna and is looking to develop West Qurna-2, located in southern Iraq. The deal for both phases was signed for 23 years, but frozen in 2002.
West Qurna-2's proven recoverable reserves have been estimated at around 6 billion barrels of oil. Under the terms of the contract, output could amount to 4.8 billion barrels of oil and 56.4 billion cubic meters of associated gas. Investment in the project could reach $4 billion.
Baghdad is also discussing the West Qurna-2 oil field with Chevron and Total. However, analysts say that Iraq is likely to resume work at West Qurna-2 with LUKoil after Russia recently wrote off the bulk of the country's debt of around $12 billion.
