ConocoPhillips to Buy BP's 42% Kirkuk Stake as US-Iraq Summit Lines Up USD 60 Billion in Deals
ConocoPhillips has agreed to acquire the 42% stake held in BP's affiliate in the Kirkuk region of Iraq, with the parties targeting completion by the end of 2026 once legal and administrative approvals are secured, according to EKOTURK.
The transaction sits inside a wider investment decision by ConocoPhillips, the United States-based energy company, covering the redevelopment of four large oil fields in the Kirkuk region. The purchase becomes official only after the approval process at the relevant institutions concludes.
The Kirkuk programme is aimed at raising production capacity in the region and redeveloping existing fields, EKOTURK reported, describing Kirkuk as one of Iraq's most important oil production centres.
For BP, the stake sale unwinds a position the company built recently in an operating theatre it has held for roughly a century. BP operates Rumaila, one of the country's largest oil fields. In 2025 it signed a significant agreement with the Baghdad government to redevelop the oil and natural gas fields at Kirkuk, covering the Baba and Avanah domes together with the Bai Hassan, Jambur and Khabbaz fields.
Both companies are expected to announce new multibillion-dollar investments in Iraq under the US-Iraq business summit held in Washington, according to Beyaz Yakaris. CNBC reported that agreements and memoranda of understanding worth more than USD 60 billion in total are expected to be signed at the summit between US companies and the Iraqi government.
Some projects could reach tens of billions of dollars, sources cited in the report said, though the details of the projects the companies will take on have not been made public.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali el-Zaidi is attending the summit alongside senior US officials and executives from leading global energy companies. Before the summit, el-Zaidi met executives from Halliburton, Shell, Honeywell, Weatherford and Baker Hughes in Houston. Those talks covered new investment, technology transfer and cooperation on large-scale energy projects.
The backdrop is the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one fifth of global oil trade passes, and which has become one of the most critical questions in energy markets after tensions between Washington and Tehran resumed.
The pricing question for a global investor base is narrow and testable. A US independent is taking a majority-adjacent portfolio position in northern Iraqi brownfield redevelopment at the same moment a bilateral summit is queuing more than USD 60 billion of commitments. What the approval timeline shows by the end of 2026 is whether that risk clears at the regulatory level as easily as it clears at the signing table.
Beyaz Yakaris published its account on July 17, 2026, citing patronlardunyasi.com as its source. EKOTURK's report on the ConocoPhillips agreement carries the same date.