New Delhi, April 15: ONGC Videsh Ltd., the overseas arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, on Monday qualified to bid for oil and gas contracts in Iraq to develop one of the world's largest oil fields, a company official said.

OVL is the only Indian company in the list of 35 firms that the Iraqi Government, headed by Nouri al-Maliki, has found to be eligible for bidding for the contracts, the official said.

The list contains four Chinese firms - CNOOC, CNPC, Sinochem and the Sinopic Group.

It also names seven energy majors from the U.S., including Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Exxonmobil, Marathon and Occidenal Petroleum.

Reliance Industries had not participated in the qualification round after Baghdad threatened to blacklist the firm for signing contracts for two oil blocks with the Kurdistan Regional Government.

The BG Group of the U.K., Eni of Italy, Inpex of Japan, Kogas of Korea, Lukoil of Russia, BHP Billiton and Woodside of Australia, Mitsubishi Corp of Japan, Petronas of Malaysia, Pertamina of Indonesia, Repsol of Spain, Shell, Statoil Hydro of Norway, and Total of France were also among the qualified companies.

The official said in all 120 companies had sought to pre-qualify for the first Iraqi licensing round after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime.

OVL already has licence for Block 8 in Iraq and as such was qualified even before the announcement by the Iraqi Oil Ministry. It had also stitched consortia with Reliance Industries and Sonatrach of Algeria for the Tuba oilfield. Though the Tuba oilfield was awarded by the Saddam Hussein regime to OVL-Reliance-Sonatrach, the new U.S.-backed regime did not accept the award.