Malaysia’s national oil company, Petronas, remains committed to ramping up production from its Garraf field in Iraq, according to industry sources.

In December, Petronas confirmed that it intended to exit Iraq’s Majnoon concession along with joint stakeholder Shell.

Iraq's Oil Ministry is set to assume control of the Majnoon field.

“The company is exiting Majnoon, but it is still intrested in Iraq and it is intent on pushing ahead with the Garraf project,” a source said.

Currently production from the Garraf field stands at 100,000 barrels a day (b/d), according to one source.

Petronas first produced oil from the field, which it operates in Iraq’s Thi Qar Province, in 2013 when production stood at an initial rate of 35,000 b/d. In 2013, Petronas said that it was targeting 230,000 b/d from the field by 2017, but this failed to materialise due to delays to an ongoing $5bn project to develop the field. The company is still expecting to make progress on the field development project.

It is targeting production of 230,000 b/d from the field and expects to hit that target within two to three years, according to industry sources. Petronas is partnered with the Tokyo-listed Japan Petroleum Exploration Company (Japex) and Iraq’s state owned South Oil Company.

Garraf oil field is located approximately five kilometres north-west of Al-Refaei city and 85km north of the city of Nasiriya. In 2013, it was estimated to hold 1.3 billion barrels of oil reserves.