Schlumberger, the world’s largest oil-services company, has promised the US government that it will pull out of Iran when its current contracts are complete, The Boston Globe reported.
Schlumberger has never publicly announced its intention to leave Iran, the paper said.
The oil services giant – believed to be the last such Western company operating in the country – which has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts in Iran made a private pledge to US officials.
The company’s current order book for work in the country according to internal company documents acquired by the newspaper show that it will likely be present till at least 2013. This has angered the officials in the US Government who for the past 15 years, have tried to reign in Western companies operating in the Islamic Republic due to its nuclear power aspirations which the US and its allies believe could be used for military purposes.
The sanctions imposed by the United States on American companies banning them from working in Iran’s oil and gas sector, have been in place since 1995, according to The Globe however Schlumberger which is registered offshore has managed to evade such measures.
