The Rumaila oil field is a super-giant oil field located in southern Iraq, approximately 50km to the south west of Basra City. Discovered in 1953 by the Basrah Petroleum Company (BPC), an associate company of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), the field is estimated to contain 17 billion barrels, which accounts for 12% of Iraq's oil reserves, estimated at 143 billion barrels. Rumaila is said to be the largest oilfield ever discovered in Iraq and is one of the three largest oil fields in the world.
Firefighters from Kuwait attempting to extinguish a burning oil well at Rumaila in March 2003
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 world's largest oil companies and headquartered in London, England. However, today it is only a paper entity with historical rights and plays no part in the modern development of Middle Eastern oil.
Calouste Gulbenkian
Kirkuk district: an oil gusher spouting with a stream of oil in foreground.
IPC assistants welding pipes together on the Esdraelon stretch in the 1930s.
IPC oil tanks at Haifa.