Iraq and China agree to $3 billion oil service deal

BEIJING (Reuters) – Iraq and China have agreed the terms of a $3 billion oil service contract, Iraq’s oil minister said on Wednesday, announcing the first major oil contract with a foreign firm since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Energy-hungry China has beaten international oil majors to take the first opening since the U.S.-led invasion for work on the world’s third-largest reserves.

Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani warned that time was running out for big Western oil firms, which have jostled for years for Iraqi contracts, to seal even the short-term deals that were expected to mark their return to the country.

Iraq and China’s state-oil firm CNPC have agreed the renegotiated terms of an old deal signed in 1997 to pump oil from the Adhab oilfield, Shahristani told Reuters in an interview. CNPC is Asia’s biggest oil and gas company.

Reuters