TotalEnergies will have no qualms about ditching a plan to invest some $27 billion in Iraq’s energy sector if the terms of a contract agreed two years ago are changed significantly, according to chief executive Patrick Pouyanne.

In September 2021, in the middle of the Covid pandemic, the French energy giant signed agreements to invest in oil, gas and solar projects in the Middle East nation, a move described at the time by an Iraqi government official as the “biggest investment by a Western company in Iraq”.