The Iraq National Oil Company (INOC) is a petroleum company founded in 1966 by the

Iraqi government The government of Iraq is defined under the current Constitution, approved in 2005, as a democratic, parliamentary republic with Islam as the official state religion. The government is composed of the executive, legislative, and judicial branche ...

. It was empowered to operate all aspects of the

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

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

except for

refining Refining is the process of purification of a (1) substance or a (2) form. The term is usually used of a natural resource that is almost in a usable form, but which is more useful in its pure form. For instance, most types of natural petroleum w ...

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

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

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 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 Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with p ...

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 armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

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 Kirkuk (; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of the Kirkuk Governorate. The city is home to a diverse population of Kurds, Iraqi Turkmen, Iraqi Turkmens and Arabs. Kirkuk sits on the ruins of the original Kirkuk Cit ...

, and South Oil Company, based in

Basra Basra () is a port city in Iraq, southern Iraq. It is the capital of the eponymous Basra Governorate, as well as the List of largest cities of Iraq, third largest city in Iraq overall, behind Baghdad and Mosul. Located near the Iran–Iraq bor ...

References

Oil and gas companies of 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 {{iraq-stub