The Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC) started work on a $3 billion oil project in Iraq on Friday, the first foreign firm to begin such work since dictator Saddam Hussein nationalised the industry decades ago, Reuters reported. A CNPC delegation formally opened the al-Ahdab oil field project in Iraq's eastern province of Wasit, officials there said. "It's a significant event which signals the first contribution of a foreign company in developing Iraq's oil fields for three decades," Wasit governor Latif al-Tarfa told Reuters by telephone.
