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BP, TotalEnergies and Eni have begun to evacuate staff from oilfields in Iraq amid fears that neighbouring Iran may retaliate against Israel and the US by bombing energy infrastructure in the region.
The three European oil majors have “temporarily evacuated some foreign personnel” from the south of the country, although local staff were continuing to run operations and oil production had been unaffected, Iraq’s state-run Basra Oil Company said in a statement on Monday.
The decisions follow US air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend and mark the first confirmation of international oil companies pulling staff from the region since Israel launched its first attacks on Iran 10 days ago.
BP confirmed the decision, adding there was no impact on its operations. “As a precautionary measure, BP has made the decision to relocate some staff from Iraq,” it said in a statement.
Basra Oil Company said Eni had reduced its presence from 260 people to 90, while Total had evacuated 60 per cent of its personnel.
The Italian oil major declined to comment on the number of people it had moved from Iraq but confirmed it had decided to reduce its presence in the country as a “precaution”. Total declined to comment.
Iran’s top military commander, Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, on Monday said the country’s forces were entitled to retaliate against US interests, with some analysts fearing that any western operation in the region could become a target.
The Islamic republic backed several militias in Iraq that it could call on to launch attacks on western energy infrastructure, said Helima Croft, a former CIA analyst who is now at RBC Capital Markets.
“If the Iranian leadership believes that survival is at stake, it may exert serious pressure on the remaining proxies in Iraq and Yemen to provide much more material assistance,” she wrote in a note.
She added: “We do see a clear and present risk of energy attacks as it is one of the remaining ways the Iranian regime can impose costs on the west.”
