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MOSCOW, June 17 (Reuters) - BP chief executive BobDudley said on Tuesday the oil company's operations in Iraq wereso far unaffected by violence in the country.
"We are just very vigilant in Iraq. Non-essential productionpeople have left but operations continue," he told reporters onthe sidelines of an energy conference in Moscow.
Last week, militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and theLevant (ISIL) overran the northern city of Mosul and have sincepressed south towards Baghdad in an onslaught against theShi'ite-led government.
Dudley said BP's assets were a "long way from the troubles"in the south of the country, near Basra.
Along with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC),BP operates under a technical service contract with Iraq'sstate-owned South Oil Company to boost production from theRumaila oilfield.
Under the contract, BP and its partners aim to increaseplateau production to 2.85 million barrels per day at Rumaila inthe second half of the next decade.
Almost all Western oil majors work with Baghdad on jointprojects including Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, ENI, Russia's Gazprom Neft, Lukoil and Chinese firms.
Asked if he was concerned about the Iraqi government'scontrol over the country, Dudley said: "The people we aredealing with appear to be very much in control of the oilcommunications that we have."
Vagit Alekperov, chief executive of Lukoil which operatesthe West Qurna-2 oil field, told reporters on Monday his companyhad boosted security at the field but that the company did not feel that the project was under threat at the moment. (reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, additional reporting byOlesya Astakhova; writing by Katya Golubkova, editing byElizabeth Piper)
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