AFP: Schlumberger — the world’s largest oil-services company — has promised the US government that it will pull out of Iran when its current contracts are complete, The Boston Globe reported.
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Schlumberger — the world’s largest oil-services company — has promised the US government that it will pull out of Iran when its current contracts are complete, The Boston Globe reported.
The newspaper said the decision marked a major victory in the US struggle to cut off Iran’s access to funds for its nuclear program.
Internal company documents obtained by The Globe show that Schlumberger has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts in Iran.
Those contracts will keep the company, believed to be the last Western oil-services firm in Iran, working in the country until least 2013, the report said Friday.
Schlumberger has never publicly announced its intention to leave, the paper said.
But the private pledge to US officials marks the final chapter in a 15-year tug-of-war between the US government and Western companies that are helping to build Iran’s oil and gas industry, the report said.
Sanctions banning Americans from helping Iran’s oil sector have been in place since 1995, The Globe recalled. But Schlumberger was able to keep working in Iran because it is registered offshore.
