Two of Iraq’s four deputy oil ministers, the chief of oil contracts, and nearly a dozen senior Oil Ministry officials are included in the first tranche of officials forced out under a 2019 amendment of a 2014 federal retirement law. Fayadh Nema, the senior deputy minister in charge of the upstream sector, along with the deputy minister for gas Mutasam Akram, are among 14 named in a Dec. 29 memo seen by Iraq Oil Report.