The Exxon Mobil-led consortium, which included Malaysia's Petronas, requested $4.80 per barrel for production over the minimum, while BP wanted $3.99 per barrel, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said. The ministry was willing to pay $2 per barrel.
BP agreed to match the ministry's price and won the contract for Rumaila, said al-Shahristani.
Exxon Mobil, in a move mirrored by other companies throughout the day, refused to revise its bid.
"Our numbers were not far from reality, and proof of that is that BP accepted our price for Rumaila," al-Shahristani said after the auction. He said he believed oil companies inflated their requests to cover security companies' fees.
After Rumaila, the auction went downhill.
No bids were offered for the Mansouria gas field in the restive Diyala province, while only one bid was submitted for each of the Bai Hassan and Kirkuk oil fields in the north, the Akkas gas field, and the Missan fields - three adjacent fields offered as one bloc.
China's CNOOC led the consortium bidding for Missan, and sought a payment of $21.40 per barrel over the baseline minimum output level. Iraq said it was willing to pay $2 per barrel and the two sides were unable to come to an agreement.
What is surprising "is that the oil ministry would be that far off the mark as to what the companies can agree to," said Ciszuk. "It shows its willingness to squeeze" international oil companies.
"But they've gone too far," he said. "With this outcome, the Iraqi government becomes the desperate one."
The government also failed to agree with the ConocoPhillips-led consortium bidding for Bai Hassan.
The Zubair oil field attracted four consortiums, while the West Qurna Stage I field in the south drew interest from five consortiums led by France's Total, Russia's Lukoil, Spain's Repsol, Exxon and CNPC. But the bids were again far different from what the Iraqis wanted - in one case for West Qurna, a bid was almost 10 times what the government was willing to pay.
Officials had earlier said that any fields not agreed on would be re-offered in subsequent rounds. But al-Shahristani said the top offers on all the non-awarded fields - except for Mansouria - would be presented to the cabinet for review.
The step appeared aimed at saving a bidding round that has been under fire by some in parliament over precisely that approval process.
Some lawmakers had argued that al-Shahristani's insistence on having the Cabinet approve the deals, instead of the parliament, would render the deals unconstitutional. But the political wrangling was largely an effort by the country's various political blocs to secure a stake in Iraq's oil fortunes.
Whatever the motivation behind the dispute, it did little to calm international oil companies' angst.
