Iraq expects to start the first phase of a multibillion-dollar water injection project to help boost crude production rates from its southern oilfields in a month, an Iraqi oil official said on Wednesday.

“Talks with oil companies are focused now at the total cost of the first phase of the project, and we expect to reach a deal and start first steps of building after a month,” Abdul-Mahdy al-Ameedi, head of the Oil Ministry’s licensing and contracting office, told Reuters.

Water injection helps to increase the amount of crude that can be pumped from oilfields and will be key to enabling the oil companies to reach ambitious production targets set in their development contracts.

U.S. oil major ExxonMobil (XOM.N) is taking the lead, among oil companies that won development contracts for southern oilfields, in coordinating initial studies for the project. [ID:nLDE63I1R5]

Iraq has agreed with the oil companies that the project needs to be built in phases. The first phase will involve the pumping of 2 million barrels per day of water to the Rumaila, Zubair and West Qurna Phase One oilfields, Ameedi said.

According to the latest data obtained from state-run South Oil Company, the cost of the first phase of the project is estimated at around $4.5 billion, and total projected cost for the whole project is around $15 billion.

“Oil companies would pay the cost of the project depending on how much water they will take. Iraq would pay back companies at a later stage,” Ameedi said.

The water injection scheme would help raise extraction rates at Iraq’s southern oilfields such as West Qurna, Majnoon, Zubair and Rumaila. The fields are being developed by oil majors including BP Plc (BP.L), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), Lukoil (LKOH.MM), China’s CNPC and Eni of Italy (ENI.MI).

Iraq has signed a series of deals with international oil companies in a bid to boost production capacity to 12 million barrels per day from 2.7 million bpd now. However, most analysts say 6-7 million bpd is a more realistic target.