LUKoil is ready to "go before international justice", spokesman Dmitry Dolgov said, quoted by ITAR-TASS.

"LUKoil's international contracts were signed in full conformity with international law and with the help of US law firms," he said.

LUKoil fears the US-led administration set to govern postwar Iraq will throw out a contract it says gives it exclusive rights to develop Iraq's West Qurna-2 oilfield.

It has threatened to seek a court injunction from an international tribunal in Geneva to block any attempts by competitors to develop the field and to seize all Iraqi crude if the country's postwar administration throws out the lucrative contract.

LUKoil held a 68.5-percent share in a consortium to develop the oilfield with the Iraqi energy ministry and two other Russian companies signed in 1997.

Under the agreement, LUKoil was to invest some four billion dollars in the site's development by 2020, although the company has been unable to exploit the site due to UN oil embargoes on Baghdad.

Baghdad cancelled the deal in December amid reports that LUKoil was negotiating possible postwar scenarios with exiled Iraqi opposition groups.

It reiterated the cancellation in February, but LUKoil insists it still owns the exclusive right to develop the oilfield.

Russian oil companies have invested more than one billion dollars over the past seven years into Iraq's vast oil reserves -- second only to those of Saudi Arabia -- but they risk exclusion from postwar contracts because of Russia's fierce opposition to the US-British war.

SPACE.WIRE