CNPC's Daqing unit awarded $194 million drilling contract in Iraq

BEIJING (Reuters) - A drilling subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp has won an engineering, procurement and construction contract worth 1.4 billion yuan ($194 million) to drill wells with two rigs in Iraq's Rumaila oilfield, the company said late on Thursday.

The contract, awarded to CNPC Daqing Drilling Engineering Co, was the single largest overseas contract the company has secured in the past five years, according to a statement posted on the company's official WeChat account.

The statement did not provide the number of wells to be drilled under the contract.

Daqing Drilling began providing its well-drilling service in the Rumaila oilfield in 2010, shortly after CNPC and BP signed a 20-year service contract with Baghdad to develop the giant oilfield.

Iraq planned to increase its oil production capacity to around 7 million barrels per day in 2027, with main increases coming from Rumaila and West Qurna-2, an Iraqi state oil official said last November.

($1 = 7.2310 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Beijing newsroom; editing by David Evans)