Iraqi Oil Minister says: "Bid again, you're giving us too much money for our oil"

Under the service contracts, the companies would be paid a per barrel fee for any crude they produce in excess of a minimum production target.

Both groups were asked to revise their bids, said Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, because they were asking for more money per barrel than the government wanted.

No bids were offered on the second field on offer, Mansouri.

The field, located in the restive Diyala province, is an undeveloped gas field estimated to hold 3.3 trillion cubic feet of reserves with production potential of 330 million cubic feet a day. That province has weathered some of Iraq's worst violence.

SHOOT: Crazy ain't it. The USA invades the country, 'liberates it', then China, flush with US treasury bills (they haven't blown trillions on a war halfway around the world), and buys the reserves. Thanks very much USA. Next step: USA invades China and its [the US'] hegemony is finally broken. Bad strategy, but what would you expect from a bunch of evangelicals in the White House. Well, until now. Obama needs to build wind farms and re-engineer the transport psychology there. Trains, not highways. Sun and wind energy, not coal and oil. Good luck.

clipped from news.yahoo.com BAGHDAD – Iraq opened up some of its massive oil and gas fields to foreign firms on Tuesday, kicking off a landmark licensing round it hopes will help fuel its postwar reconstruction efforts. In a televised ceremony, international oil companies were invited to submit bids for six oil and two gas fields, a process that marked their return to the country over 30 years after Saddam Hussein nationalized the oil sector and expelled the foreign firms. The fields on offer hold about 43 billion of Iraq's 115 billion barrels of crude reserves — among the largest in the world. The process seemed to run into difficulties for the first two fields on offer. Two consortiums submitted offers for the Rumaila oil field, which holds 17.8 billion barrels in crude reserves. British giant BP PLC and China's CNPC made up the first consortium while U.S. giant Exxon Mobil and Malaysia's Petronas comprised the second.