Ownership Structure of IC LLC Badra Petroleum Comes to Light: West Asia LLC Owns Badra Oilfield Operator
Gazprom’s interest in Iraq’s Badra project runs through International Limited Liability Company Badra Petroleum (IC LLC Badra Petroleum). Industry sources have now revealed who owns the field’s operator: West Asia LLC, which holds 100% of its shares.
Badra Petroleum at a Glance
The company develops the Badra field under a service contract with the Iraqi government. Badra Petroleum took over as operator in February 2026.
Under the contract, the operator earns a fixed per-barrel fee plus cost recovery, but owns no part of the field itself: the subsoil and its resources belong to Iraq. The arrangement is standard practice in a country eager to attract foreign investment — foreign operators account for more than 70% of Iraq’s oil output.
Badra Petroleum is incorporated on Oktyabrsky Island in Russia’s Kaliningrad region. Since 2018, the island has hosted a special administrative region with its own legal, tax, and currency-control regime, widely known as the “Russian offshore.” It was created to attract foreign capital and to return Russian assets from overseas jurisdictions. The company was incorporated in Cyprus until it redomiciled in 2020, and since 2025 Badra Petroleum has been owned by West Asia LLC.
West Asia was founded in 2020 as GPN-Middle East Projects LLC and took its current name in 2025. The company is the holding vehicle for Gazprom’s Middle East assets. In addition to its interest in Badra, open-source publications indicate that West Asia LLC also owns the operator of the Sarqala field in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
How Badra Was Developed
The Badra field lies in Wasit Province, in eastern Iraq, on the border with Iran. It is a geologically demanding project: the producing reservoirs run nearly 5 km deep, and the crude has a high content of associated gas. The field’s oil reserves are estimated at 3 billion barrels.
The first exploration well was drilled as far back as 1979, yet steady production did not begin until 2014. The Iran–Iraq war and its aftermath kept the field off-limits for decades, and the area had to be cleared of mines before exploration could resume.
In 2010, Baghdad signed a service contract with a multinational consortium to develop the field. The contract runs to 2030. Badra Petroleum now operates the field on Gazprom’s behalf, and a five-year extension is possible once the current term expires.
In 2025, the consortium partners signed an amendment to the contract with Iraq’s state-owned Midland Oil Company, the government’s counterparty in the deal. It commits Badra Petroleum, as operator, to drilling sidetrack wells to lift output. Details of the program have not been disclosed.
The field has 22 wells in operation. Alongside crude production, the operator processes gas: its own plant captures 99% of associated gas and also produces sulfur.
The arrival of the international consortium and its Russian operator has benefited Wasit Province. The oil producers have funded community and charitable programs and created roughly a thousand jobs for local residents.
The ownership structure indicates that the Gazprom Group continues to control the asset through West Asia LLC. The transfer of the project to IC LLC Badra Petroleum is consistent with the wider redomiciliation trend among Russian energy companies, which have been relocating international assets to Russia’s domestic offshore jurisdictions. Despite geopolitical uncertainty in the region, the Badra field remains one of the company’s principal assets in Iraq.
