Iraq’s Oil Ministry has decided to postpone an auction for three gas fields to October 20 after eight companies asked for more time to study contract terms, an Iraqi oil official said on Sunday.

The auction was scheduled to be held on October 1.

‘Eight companies asked the Oil Ministry to postpone the auction to give them more time to study the final tender protocol after the ministry made some amendments,’ Abdul-Mahdy Al-Ameedi, head of the Iraqi oil ministry’s licensing and contracting office, told Reuters.

Iraq will tender gas fields at Akkas in the western desert, Iraq’s Sunni heartland and once an Al Qaeda stronghold, Mansuriyah near the Iranian border in volatile Diyala province, and Siba in the relatively peaceful southern oil hub of Basra.