Despite the prospect of access to the world's largest oil reserves outside Saudi Arabia, containing oil that is amongst the easiest to extract, the world's oil companies considered the terms offered by the Iraqi government insufficiently attractive to reach agreements on 20 year contracts for oil exploitation. The one exception was a deal struck by British Petroleum and the Chnia National Petroleum Corporationon for the giant Rumaila field. The reluctance of the oil companies to invest in Iraq is bad news for both the oil companies which cannot ignore Iraq's vast oil reserves and for Iraq which needs international investment and expertise to exploit is reserves.
