July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Iraq, holder of the world’s third- largest crude oil reserves, needs more than $50 billion of investments in the country’s petroleum industry in the next five to six years, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said.

The country plans to increase its crude oil production to 6 million barrels a day by the end of 2015, from the current 2.4 million barrels, the minister said in Tokyo today. Iraq also aims to almost triple its refining capacity to 1.5 million barrels a day by 2017 from 540,000 barrels at present.

Iraq, whose oil industry accounts for about 65 percent of gross domestic product, is seeking to attract foreign investors to help boost output after six years of conflict and prior sanctions destroyed its infrastructure. The country will hold a second bidding round for oil development rights this year after initial bidding garnered only one contract out of eight offered.

The 2015 production target is “unachievable” without the help of developed nations and international oil companies, said Hidetoshi Shioda, a senior energy analyst at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo. “Japan, which has no territorial ambitions, may be a suitable investor.”

In separate bidding for engineering contracts for Nassiriyah oil field, Iraq has asked Eni SpA, Italy’s largest energy company, and a Japanese group comprising Nippon Oil Corp., Inpex Corp. and JGC Corp. to revise their bids.

“We have finished technical assessments” for Nassiriyah, al-Shahristani told reporters in Tokyo. “Financial aspects of the contracts have to be discussed. As soon as that’s sorted out, we are willing to start the final phase of the negotiations.”

Al-Shahristani will today meet with executives of the companies in the Japanese group, he said without elaborating. Iraq is currently producing 20,000 barrels a day of oil at Nassiriyah and plans to boost output at the field to as much as 400,000 barrels, the minister said.

Iraq’s proven oil reserves in 78 discovered fields are about 115 billion barrels, equal to about 10 percent of the world’s total holdings, al-Shahristani said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Shigeru Sato in Tokyo at ssato10@bloomberg.net; Yuji Okada in Tokyo at yokada6@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 10, 2009 00:38 EDT