IBBC member BP Plc agreed to help increase crude production at northern Iraq’s Kirkuk fields as the government pushes to restore output and exporting capacity.

Iraqi and BP officials signed an agreement in Kirkuk city on Thursday to study ways of boosting capacity at the fields to 700,000 to 750,000 barrels a day. The deposits, which include the country’s oldest field, currently can pump about 450,000 barrels a day.

BP provided technical assistance to Iraq’s state-run North Oil Co. until 2015, when work halted due to fighting between government troops and Islamic State militants. Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi had asked BP to accelerate plans to develop Kirkuk’s fields, the oil ministry said in October.

Under the agreement, BP will perform surveys and studies necessary to develop Kirkuk’s fields and boost their output to as much as 750,000 barrels day, according to an oil ministry statement citing Michael Townshend, the head of BP’s Middle East business.

Kirkuk’s fields currently pump 140,000 to 150,000 barrels a day, all of it going to local refineries. Output has stopped at two of the deposits, Bai Hassan and Avana.

New Pipeline

As part of its effort to revive northern oil fields and exports, the government sought bids last month from companies to build an export pipeline from Kirkuk to Turkey. The link would run parallel to an older link that served as Iraq’s main conduit for oil exports from the north until the conflict with Islamic State forced the network to shut down.

(Source: Bloomberg)