Shafaq News/ Shell Oil Company announced on Sunday, that the contract of the standard of the exploratory patches prepared by the Iraqi Oil Ministry will determine their participation in the fourth round of licensing or not."Shell is currently awaiting the issuance of the final version of the standard contract by the Ministry of Oil to determine whether it will participate in the fourth licensing round, or not." The vice president of Shell for the Middle East and North Africa Munir Bo Aziz said to  "Shafaq  News" .

The Oil Ministry has recently announced it would end the standard contract for the fourth licensing round in February and will announce the winning companies in the round in March.

Iraq signed in 2010, contracts with several international companies to develop some oil fields in the two rounds of licensing, the first and second, to raise the production ceiling to 11 million barrels per day within the next six years, and 12 million barrels a day, after the addition of the quantities of the other fields of national effort.