The Russian company, Soyuzneftegaz, will begin exploiting the Al-Rafidayn oil field in Iraq by the end of 2005 at the earliest, the chairman of the board of Soyuzneftegaz, and the head of the Union of Oil and Gas Producers of the Russian Federation, Yuriy Shafranik, said in an interview with an ITAR-TASS correspondent today. Shafranik noted that at the moment "the company is making contacts with foreign partners about the project, in particular, with US and UK partners".
Shafranik stressed the particularly good prospects for joint oil projects in Iraq. He added that "this type of cooperation will allow the country to be quickly brought out of crisis". "These types of operations not only reduce tension in Iraq, they also allow the combining of political influence, especially that of the USA, in the country with Russian knowledge of the situation in the region," Shafranik noted.
In this regard, Shafranik stressed that LUKoil has a good chance of working the largest oil field in Iraq, Western Qurnah-2, following the forming of a strategic alliance with US company ConocoPhillips.
Soyuzneftegaz won the tender for working the Al-Rafidayn oil field in Iraq a few months before the start of military operations there.

Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow
BBC Monitoring