Gushing Andrea Leadsom Welcomes Iraqi Oil Boom in First Public Engagement as Energy Minister

onJun 10, 2015 @ 13:39 PDT

Andrea Leadsom gave a keynote speech at the Iraqi Petroleum Conference this week in her first public engagement since being appointed as energy minister in May.

Addressing industry executives in London on June 9 she called for Britain to be “Iraq’s ‘partner of choice’,” pointing to how British oil giant BP is “running one of the world’s largest fields in southern Iraq and have goals to increase this even further and triple production.”

She said: “It is great news that Iraqi oil exports have recovered and continue to increase month on month. We will all benefit from this rise in production.” Event sponsors included Shell, Total and Lukoil.

Leadsom’s rise to energy minister has correlated with generous donations to the Conservative party by Peter de Putron, a mysterious hedge fund guru – and her brother-in-law – whose investment firm has been linked to oil and gas assets.

Energy security and international energy are two of Leadsom’s responsibilities under her new role as energy minister.

She is also responsible for oil and gas policy, including shale gas. She recently met with the chief executives from Oil and Gas UK and The newly created Oil and Gas Authority in Aberdeen to “get the best out of [the] North Sea”.

By Kyla Mandel

Kyla is a freelance writer and editor with work appearing in the New York Times, National Geographic, HuffPost, Mother Jones, and Outside. She is also a member of the Society for Environmental Journalists.

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