BP says it will stay the course in Iraq as US asset disposals stall
OIL giant BP remains committed to reaching its oil production targets at Iraq’s huge Rumaila field and is not renegotiating contract terms, the company’s chief executive Bob Dudley said at a conference yesterday.
BP – one of the biggest players in the push to increase Iraqi oil production – hopes Rumaila will reach its production target of 2.85m bpd by 2017 despite infrastructure and export problems in the country.
“There is a lot of work to do but there is a lot of potential,” he told reporters at a conference.
“We remain committed to heading towards that plateau and we are not in any discussions around changing the terms of our contract,” he said, adding that limits on exporting crude from the warn-torn country were the biggest obstacle.
Dudley also said the firm has still not found a buyer for the California and Texas refineries it put on the market early this year, adding that “we have always said it would take well into 2012”.
He declined to comment on whether the firm was in talks with US authorities over a possible out of court settlement after the latest report into the Macondo well blow-out put most of the blame on BP.