OEC::Iraqi Oil Exploration Company

Oil Exploration Company ( OEC-Iraq) is the national state company responsible for all oil and gas exploration activities in Iraq, and is one of the petroleum service companies of the Iraqi Ministry of Oil.

OEC’s activities have included seismic data acquisition, processing and interpretation, location of exploration and delineation wells, related geological and geophysical studies leading to the final delineation stage of the discovered oil and gas fields making these delineated discoveries ready for development where OEC responsibilities terminate and the production oil companies responsibilities , NOC and SOC, begin.

Petroleum exploration activities in Iraq, which started in 1902, have lead to the discovery of (64) oil fields and (9) gas fields with a total proven reserves of some 115 billion barrels of oil and 3080 BCM of gas, while in the mean time 543 structures and structural anomalies have been identified which contain some 214 billion barrels of possible oil reserves and 9250 BCM of potential gas reserves.

The details of the exploration activities in Iraq follow as per the paper that was presented to the OAPEC-IFP seminar in Paris in late June 2005.

OEC activities are executed by the five main divisions and other departments as shown in the structure below.

Although our activities have greatly diminished since 1991, but much is expected during the coming years because the task is still great since Iraq has not been properly explored for the lack of exploration drilling.

Iraq is still the least explored country in the region with an average of some 2000 square kilometers per exploration well.