BP and Shell to start selling Iraqi oil

British oil giants BP and Shell are poised to start selling oil from Iraq after they won a tendering process.

The two groups are understood to be among four firms worldwide chosen to buy shipments of crude from Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) in the second such tendering process since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The two firms, which were both unsuccessful in the previous round, confirmed that they have each been awarded a cargo of two million barrels of crude in the process which was completed on Tuesday.