Iraq says close to signing technical oil support deals

BAGHDAD, Feb 29 (Reuters) - Iraq is close to finishing negotiations with oil majors for technical support contracts that will hopefully be signed in March, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said on Friday.

Shahristani said in an interview that those companies included Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research), BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research), Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Total (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) and Chevron Corp (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

"We are negotiating with these five companies. We are at the end of the negotiations," Shahristani said.

"They will study the fields with us, we will put together a plan to boost production, they will help us to select the equipment and deliver this equipment to us. There are other firms which showed interest in signing with us, so we might as well sign a few more as we go along."

He said he hoped the technical support contracts would add 500,000 bpd of oil to Iraq's output in a year.