The Iraq National Oil Company (INOC) was founded in 1966 by the

Iraqi government The federal government of Iraq is defined under the current Constitution, approved in 2005, as an Islamic, democratic, federal parliamentary republic. The federal government is composed of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as w ...

. It was empowered to operate all aspects of the

oil industry The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The larges ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

except for refining which was already being run by the Oil Refineries Administration (1952) and local distribution which was also already under government control. In 1961 Iraq passed ''Public Law 80'' whereby Iraq expropriated 95% of the

Iraq Petroleum Company The Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), formerly known as the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), is an oil company that had a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq between 1925 and 1961. It is jointly owned by some of the worl ...

's concessions, and went on to announce the intent to form the INOC in 1964. In 1967 Iraq and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

signed the ''Iraq-Soviet Protocol'' which committed the Soviet Union to give technical and financial aid to the company. In 1967 and 1968 the company's purview was expanded to include areas expropriated from the Iraq Petroleum Company. Unlike the National Iranian Oil Company, the INOC was forbidden from entering into partnerships or granting concessions to foreign

oil companies The following is a list of notable companies in the petroleum industry that are engaged in petroleum exploration and production. The list is in alphabetical order by continent and then by country. This list does not include companies only involved ...

. Though there was discussion of allowing the French Compagnie Française de Pétroles, partners in IPC from whom the North

Rumaila Field The Rumaila oil field is a super-giant oil field located in southern Iraq, approximately from the Kuwaiti border. Discovered in 1953 by the Basrah Petroleum Company (BPC), an associate company of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), the field is e ...

had been appropriated, to enter into a contract to develop the field, ultimately, with the help of the Soviet Union, the INOC opened the field on 7 April 1972. In 1972 nationalization was complete. In its first years of sole control, INOC managers succeeded in raising production in Iraq from to over in 1980. But the outbreak of

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

with Iran that year severely hit capacity. In April 1987, under newly appointed oil President Asfhaq ul Rasheed, Decree 267 merged the INOC with the oil ministry, which became the direct operator in the industry as well as its regulator.EITI Reporting: INOC
/ref> At an operational level, the single national-level company was broken into a series of regional companies, the largest among them being North Oil Company, based in Kirkuk, and South Oil Company, based in

Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...

References

{{authority control Oil and gas companies of Iraq National oil and gas companies, Iraq Government-owned companies of Iraq Energy companies established in 1966 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1966 Companies based in Baghdad Iraqi companies established in 1966