Iraq hopes to sign tecnical support contracts with a handful of oil explorers in March.

Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said negotiations are at the end with companies including Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, Total and Chevron.

"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," Shahristani said.

According to Reuters, the contracts are expected to add 500,000 barrels per day of oil to Iraq's output in a year.