500 Fils Oil Nationalization

Iraq nationalized the Iraq Petroleum Company in June 1972, ending over five decades of foreign-controlled extraction that had begun under the Ottoman-era concessions granted to what eventually became a British-dominated consortium. This coin commemorates that act, struck the following year as the Ba'athist government under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr moved to redirect oil revenues toward state development programs — revenues that would swell dramatically after the 1973 OPEC price shock hit just months after these were minted.