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Foreign oil companies operating at Iraq’s Akkas gas field have begun temporarily leaving the site in the Western Al-Anbar province pending a security assessment, Iraq’s Shafaq news agency has reported.
The companies decided to suspend their presence at the field less than two months after starting operational work, and the move will remain in effect until the security situation in the area is reassessed, it said, citing local oil sources.
Iraq's Midland Oil Company had signed a partnership agreement with the US-based oilfield services giant SLB to operate the Akkas field In July 2025.
Days earlier, the US-based Gulf Keystone Petroleum halted operations at the Shaikan oil field in the Kurdistan Region as a precautionary measure, without specifying how long the suspension would last.
A similar move was taken by Dubai-listed Dana Gas and Oslo-listed DNO.
The report said 18 Chinese oil experts, and workers from the US oil services company Weatherford, operating in the Rumaila oil field also decided to leave Iraq “temporarily” through the Safwan border crossing in Basra province.
Rumaila is operated by Basra Energy Company (BECL), a joint venture owned by BP (49 per cent) and PetroChina (51 percent), the listed arm of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
“Due due to a lack of prior coordination with Kuwaiti authorities, the group is still at the border crossing,” it added.
(Writing by N Saeed; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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