Chevron has evacuated all of its American oil workers from Iraq following the recent US airstrike in Baghdad.
Chevron, America's No. 2 oil company, said in a statement on 6 January that as a "precautionary measure" its expatriate employees and contractors have left the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq "for the time being." Chevron does not have oil workers elsewhere in Iraq.
"The safety of our people and facilities is Chevron's top priority globally," a Chevron spokeswoman told CNN Business.
Local staff are overseeing Chevron's ongoing operations in the Kurdistan region, the company said.
The Chevron evacuation comes after the Iraqi oil ministry said that "a number of" Americans working in southern Iraq were leaving the country after the United States urged its citizens to immediately depart because of soaring tensions. Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US airstrike in Baghdad late last week.
"A number" of Americans working in southern Iraq began leaving the country after the United States urged its citizens to depart immediately because of heightened tension in Iraq and the region, the Iraqi oil ministry said.
Other foreign workers were not departing and oil fields across the country were operating normally, the Iraqi oil ministry had said.