Conoco Gets Most Oil Lease Bids, Lukoil Weighs West Qurna: Energy Business Roundup

ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) received the most apparent high bids during Wednesday’s Gulf of Mexico lease sale in New Orleans, but Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) pledged the largest amount of money for blocks, according to stats provided by the sponsor, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which indicated that the former had 62 apparent highest bids, with 46 of those bids in the Alaminos Canyon. ConocoPhillips also apparently had the highest bids both in the East Breaks blocks and Port Isabel, with the  East Breaks blocks being located near Anadarko Petroleum Corporation’s (NYSE:APC) Nansen-Boomvang complex which it is redeveloping.

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The number two crude producer in Russia, Lukoil Co. (LUKOF.PK)(LUKOY.PK) will decide by the end of 2012 whether to replace Exxon Mobil Corporation in the West Qurna-1 oilfield in Iraq, according to the company’s chief on Wednesday. Lukoil already controls the largest amount of reserves in Iraq so far as foreign companies there go, and it’s assertively boosting its oversea footprint so as to offset falling output at depleted fields in at home, where its ability to grow is limited by high taxes and state moves that favor state-controlled enterprises.

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