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Exxon to pick West Qurna buyer soon

Updated 15 November 2012 Reuters November 15, 2012 03:00 LONDON: Exxon Mobil is in the advanced stages of talks with potential buyers to take on Iraq’s West Qurna 1 oil field and there are enough appropriate candidates, the country’s deputy prime minister for energy said.Exxon is selling its stake in the south of the country to enable it to focus on its deal for exploration blocks in semi-autonomous northern Kurdistan.Hussain Al-Shahristani also said Iraq would not pay a second tranche of an agreed 1 trillion Iraqi dinars ($860 million) to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) because it had not metan oil export target agreed in September.Exxon Mobil, which has signed oil deals in the Kurdistan region that are seen as more lucrative but are dismissed by the central government as illegal, has informed Baghdad it wants to pull out of the $50 billion West Qurna 1 project in southern Iraq.The central government had told Exxon it had to make a choice between working in southern Iraq or Ku…