Iraq awards $348M in drilling contracts to Weatherford, others

• Weatherford (NYSE:WFT) is awarded drilling contracts worth $177M by Iraq's government, part of a total $348M awarded to three oil service companies to drill 39 production wells in the 2.5B-barrel Maysan complex being developed by Cnooc (NYSE:CEO) and Turkish Petroleum Corp.; China's Bohai Drilling and a unit of Cnooc were the other winners.
• Iraq hopes to reach its production target of 450K bbl/day for Maysan by 2016.