This photo released by the Iraqi Prime Minister Press Office shows a burning vehicle at the Baghdad International Airport following an airstrike, in Baghdad, Iraq, early Friday, Jan. 3, 2020. - AP

Asharq Al-Awsat

Dozens of US citizens working for foreign oil companies in the southern Iraqi oil city of Basra were preparing to leave the country on Friday, Iraq's Oil Ministry said after a US air strike killed Iranian Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani and deputy chief of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

The US embassy in Baghdad urged all citizens to depart from Iraq immediately, hours after the US strike.

Iraqi officials said the evacuation would not affect operations, production or exports.

Company sources told Reuters earlier the workers were expected to fly out of the country.

Oil production from Iraq, the second biggest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was about 4.62 million barrels per day (bpd), according to a Reuters survey of OPEC output.

A spokesman for BP, which operates the giant Rumaila oil field near Basra, declined to comment. Rumaila produced around 1.5 million bpd as recently as April.

Meanwhile, Genel, an oil producer in the autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, said its operations were continuing normally. It did not comment on any staff movements.

Gulf Keystone Petroleum, which also operates in Kurdistan, declined to comment. DNO did not immediately reply to a request for comment.