Occidental Operations in Iraq

= History =

The service contracts signed in 2009 marked the start of Occidental's work in Iraq. In a leaked US diplomatic cable from early 2010, the Iraq country manager for Chevron commented that, excluding state-controlled companies, "Occidental Petroleum was the only Western IOC that is not a former IPC (Iraq Petroleum Company) partner and that bid aggressively enough to be awarded a contract from Iraq's 2009 oil bid rounds."

= Activities and Contracts =

Zubair
Occidental originally bid for development of the Zubair field in Iraq's first post-war licensing round, as part of a consortium with fellow companies Eni, Sinopec and Kogas, proposing a remuneration fee of $4.80 per barrel. However on this occasion no bids for the field were accepted as the per-barrels fees bid were considered too high by the Iraqi government. However following bilateral negotiations, in January 2010 Oxy announced that the amended consortium had signed a contract with the state-owned South Oil Company and Missan Oil Company to develop the field. The relative stakes in the consortium were as follows: Eni (32.8%), Occidental (23.44%) and Kogas (18.75%).

A US diplomatic cable from January 2010 claimed that the Eni/Occidental/Kogas consortium was the only consortium not to have accepted changes demanded by the Ministry of Oil and suggested the companies may have gained some concessions on the changes demanded by the Ministry.

= References =