The Iraqi government has approved a contract for two foreign energy firms to exploit a huge oil field. Anglo-Dutch giant Shell and Malaysia's Petronas will extract oil from the huge Majnoon field, which has known reserves of close to 13 billion barrels.

The field is the largest of seven whose exploitation the Iraqi government has recently auctioned. Iraq intends to boost its daily oil output to 12.5 million barrels per day, five times more than its current production level. Iraq has the world's third-largest oil reserves, behind Saudi Arabia and Iran. Due to several wars and an embargo imposed on Iraq in 1990, its oil fields have hardly been exploited or have deteriorated.

Shell oil barrel (Photo: Flickr / zieak)