Big Oil Companies Are Evacuating Staff In Iraq
International Business Times
Published Jun 18, 2014 09:25AM ET
Updated Jun 18, 2014 10:00AM ET
Big Oil Companies Are Evacuating Staff In Iraq
By Meagan Clark - Giant oil companies Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), BP (LONDON:BP) and Petrochina (NYSE:PTR) have begun evacuating staff from southern Iraq, though production so far has remained unaffected as militant Islamists roam the northern region.
On Tuesday, BP’s chief executive Bob Dudley told reporters in Moscow: "We are just very vigilant in Iraq. Non-essential production people have left, but operations continue." UK-based BP is a major investor in Iraq through the giant Rumaila field. A BP spokesman said Wednesday the company would not comment further at this time.
BP has evacuated 20 percent of its staff, and Texas-based Exxon has carried out a “major evacuation” of its staff, the head of Iraq’s state-run South Oil Company Dhiya Jaffar told Reuters.
ExxonMobil did not immediately comment.
"I assure the companies that the current developments in the country have not affected and will not affect in any way the operations in the south,'' he said. He expects that Iraq’s export level for June will be 2.7 million barrels per day, unaffected by the crisis in the north.
Jaffar also said Italy-based oil company Eni Spa Roma (OTC:EIPAF), Houston-based oil field services companies Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB) and Baker Hughes (NYSE:BHI) and Switzerland-based oil services company Weatherford International (NYSE:WFT) have no plans to evacuate staff.
However, PetroChina, the single biggest investor in Iraq’s oil sector, is pulling staff. The company’s joint secretary Mao Zefeng told Reuters some non-essential staff have been evacuated, without saying how many or if they were transported out of the country or into safe zones in Iraq.
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Written By: International Business Times
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