Iraq removes state oil company head

For the second time this year, Iraq has removed the head of South Oil Company (SOC), the biggest of its three state-owned oil producers.

The move came as the government approved a plan to re-establish a national oil company to oversee most operations in Iraq’s oil and gas sector.

Fayad al Nema, who last month criticised the oil ministry’s plan to auction off contracts to foreign companies to raise production from Iraq’s biggest oilfields, has been transferred to a ministry job, according to Ali al Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman.