Petroleum graduates blockade Basra Oil Company gates
Shafaq News- Basra
Engineering, petroleum, and science graduates began an open-ended sit-in outside the Basra Oil Company on Sunday, sealing all gates to the state firm's headquarters and halting access to the compound, according to a protest representative who spoke to Shafaq News.
The protesters closed every entrance to the company's headquarters, the building locally known as the Ziggurat, and said the blockade would remain in place until their demands- the release of Oil Ministry contracts at Iraq's profit-making state oil companies to absorb unemployed graduates, are met.
Basra Oil Company is Iraq's largest state producer, responsible for the southern oil fields that generate the bulk of the country's crude output and, with it, most federal revenue.
Protest representative Hassan al-Shawi told Shafaq News the graduates had met Iraq's oil minister roughly three weeks earlier to present their case but had received no response from the ministry. That meeting, by its timing, would have been with Bassim Mohammed Khudair, confirmed as oil minister in May 2026 under Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi's government.
At issue is the graduates' call to be hired under Iraq's Federal Financial Management Law of 2019, the legislation governing public revenue and spending, which al-Shawi said permits profit-making state companies to contract staff directly. He tied that authority to a measure he identified as "Decision 315," urging the ministry to move quickly to open ministerial contracts for graduates of engineering, petroleum, and science disciplines.
"We met the oil minister three weeks ago to raise our demands, but we saw no response from the ministry, so we decided to begin an open sit-in and close all the gates of the Basra Oil Company until our demands are met," al-Shawi said.
The action is the latest in a protest movement that has recurred outside the company for more than a year, led by graduates in petroleum-related fields who say repeated appeals to authorities have gone unanswered. Basra, Iraq's southern oil hub, produces about 70-80% of the nation's crude yet reports some of the highest poverty and unemployment.
