Russia Expands Its Influence In Major Iraqi Oil Fields

Given the U.S.’s broad scaling-down of its on-the-ground operations in the Middle East over the past five years, a specific function of which is ExxonMobil’s intention to sell its stake in Iraq’s supergiant West Qurna 1 oil field, China and Russia have been busy in occupying the spaces left by the U.S., as OilPrice.com has been highlighting since the process began. Just a few days ago, Washington appeared finally to have caught up to what has been going on, with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Dana Stroul, saying: “It’s……