Foreign oil companies increase investments in Iraq
The Deputy Oil Minister for Extraction Affairs, Basim Khudair, said in a statement that foreign oil firms are increasingly interested in investing and operating in Iraq's oil reserves, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.
Global multinational oilfield services company Schlumberger has begun operations at the Akkas gas field in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, according to Khudair.
The Iraqi official illustrated that Iraqi Minister of Oil Hayan Abdul-Ghani and officials representing the US-based company Chevron recently met in the Austrian capital, Vienna, to explore investment in four exploration blocks in the Nasiriyah oil field, located approximately 200 kilometers northwest of Basra.
Khudair mentioned that discussions also addressed the development proposal of the Balad oilfield located about 60 kilometers north of Baghdad.
US-based ExxonMobil also showed interest in once again entering the Iraqi market and is actively negotiating possible investments in Iraqi oilfields, according to Khudair.
The aforementioned steps are a positive sign of multinational corporations' trust in the investment climate provided by the Iraqi government in the oil and gas sectors.
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