UK/Dutch Shell Group has finally produced its first oil at the Majnoon oilfield in the Basra province of southern Iraq, more than nine months behind schedule.

The first oil well at the field was opened on 20 September, according to a 6 October press release.

Shell was criticised in late-August by the Oil Ministry in a letter leaked to the press threatening legal action over the company’s failure to start up production as originally planned at the beginning of 2013.

Shell will now ramp up production over the coming months to the agreed first commercial production target of 175,000 barrels a day (b/d).

The development of the oilfield involved the drilling of new wells and the construction of a greenfield central processing facility (CPF), as well as the revamping of brownfield installations.

Shell has been developing the Majnoon field since 2010, when it was awarded a technical service contract in consortium with Malaysia’s Petronas and state-owned Missan Oil Company. The group agreed to boost production from its 2009 level of less than 50,000 b/d to a plateau of 1.8 million b/d.