BEIJING, Jul. 6, 2009 (Xinhua News Agency) -- CNOOC (CEO.NYSE; 0883.HK) will continue bidding for a contract to explore oil and gas in Iraq if the country offers to reset the bidding process for the fields which already suffered bid failures, Caijing cited Fu Chengyu, general manager of CNOOC, as saying.

The Iraqi government offered eight tenders last month for the production of its six oilfields and two gasfields. Only one of the fields had a contract written for it, while the other seven suffered bid failures.

The efforts by a consortium made of CNOOC, Sinopec (NYSE:SNP) and ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) also failed in their tender offers due to the large divergence on the price of the payment on the extra exploration.

"CNOOC must take into consideration the return on capital," said Fu, "but we will continue to bid if given the opportunity."