ConocoPhillips收购BP伊拉克Kirkuk油田项目公司42%股权

ConocoPhillips buys into BP’s contract to redevelop Iraq’s supergiant Kirkuk oilfield
ConocoPhillips has bought into BP’s project to redevelop the supergiant Kirkuk oilfield in northern Iraq, becoming the latest US oil major to invest in the country’s oil sector as the Trump administration looks to deepen ties with Baghdad.
ConocoPhillips will acquire a 42 per cent shareholding from BP in a company set up to rejuvenate several large-scale oilfields in the Kirkuk area, the companies said in statements, with the aim of raising production. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The announcement comes as Iraq’s prime minister Ali al-Zaidi visits the US and comes amid a flurry of plans to develop the country’s oil sector, 23 years after the US-led invasion of the country.
US oil majors have largely steered clear of Iraqi oil developments in the past decade, blaming poor terms on offer from Baghdad. That had left Chinese companies as the main foreign investor in the Opec member’s oil sector, but Iraq is making efforts to woo more US firms back to the country.
Tom Barrack, the US special envoy for Syria and Iraq and a longtime friend of President Donald Trump, has been helping orchestrate agreements between US oil companies and Baghdad, people familiar with the matter have said.
Chevron is discussing a series of pipeline projects that could connect the southern Iraqi oilfields to the north, with plans to build a pipeline from Kirkuk that would run west through Syria to the Mediterranean port of Baniyas, providing Iraq with an alternative export route to the Strait of Hormuz.
BP’s connection to the Kirkuk fields dates back almost 100 years when it was part of a group that discovered oil at the supergiant field. BP estimated last year that fields in the Kirkuk region had a “combined resource opportunity estimated at up to 20bn barrels of oil equivalent”.
The company returned to the fields in 2013, but the rise of the militant group Isis the following year stalled progress.
The semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government briefly took control of Kirkuk and its surrounding fields in 2014, occupying territory they had long coveted as a bulwark against Isis, but were expelled by federal Iraqi forces in 2017.
The oil majors will work together to expand oil and gas production from the fields, which are currently operated by Iraq’s state-run North Oil company, to raise output, the statements said. BP said remuneration for the Kirkuk production company would be “linked to incremental production volumes, price and costs”.
Kirkuk and its satellite fields can currently produce around 300,000 barrels per day, well below their peak output in the 1970s above 1.5mn b/d, before they were mismanaged by Saddam Hussein’s regime. The development contract for the fields covers an initial 3bn barrels of oil equivalent, with additional exploration potential.
ConocoPhillips chief executive and chair Ryan Lance described it as a “unique redevelopment opportunity”.
BP’s chief executive Meg O’Neill, who has emphasised disciplined investment in oil and gas since taking the top job in April, said Kirkuk was a “world-class resource base” and welcomed the partnership with ConocoPhillips.
“We’re being deliberate about where we invest,” O’Neill said.
Chevron is also expected to agree to take over West Qurna-2 and Nasiriyah oilfields, after Russia’s Lukoil was left unable to operate them following the imposition of US sanctions in 2025.