British Petroleum BP. Photo: Reuters
LONDON,— BP has pulled out of Iraq’s giant Kirkuk oilfield after its $100 million exploration contract expired with no agreement on its expansion, dealing a fresh blow to Iraq’s hopes to expand it oil output, three sources told Reuters.
The move comes as Western energy companies reassess their operations in Iraq amid political turmoil following months of anti-government protests and a flare-up in tensions between the United States and Iran in the country.
BP informed Iraqi authorities last month that it was pulling its staff out of the oilfield in the north of the country after its 2013 service contract expired at the end of 2019, the sources said.
Kirkuk is an oil-rich and multi-ethnic province that sits within a belt of territory known as the “disputed areas,” which is claimed both by the Kurdistan Regional Government and Iraq’s federal government.
In 2014, the Kurdish forces take full control of Kirkuk after the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq and the withdrawal of Iraqi army form the province and some other northern region of the state, including second-biggest city of Mosul.
Kurds control an autonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq’s north, and they also held the disputed Kirkuk province from 2003 until they were driven out in October 2017 by Iraqi federal forces after Baghdad rejected the Barzani’s controversial independence referendum.
In 2017, Iraqi Army and Hashd al-Shaabi Shiite also retook all disputed areas from Kurds and Iraqi forces took control of the two largest oil fields in the disputed northern province of Kirkuk dealing a heavy blow to the finances of the Kurdistan government.
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