All Hopes Are Dashed For International Oil Companies In North Iraq

Any hopes held by international oil companies (IOCs) that the Baghdad-based Federal Government of Iraq (FGI) was just bluffing about blacklisting IOCs operating in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq have been dashed. A letter sent on 12 June by Hassan Muhammad Hassan, the deputy director general of the state-run Basra Oil Company (BOC) called on ‘all lead contractors and sub-contractors’ of IOCs working in Iraqi Kurdistan to pledge that they would no longer work in Kurdistan and that any current contracts should be terminated…