Iraqis who previously worked at the field have already started returning to ask for their jobs back, said Boots & Coots president, Brian Krause.
Rumeila South, just north of the Kuwait-Iraq border, is one of Iraq's biggest oil fields. Air Marshal Brian Burridge, the top British commander in the Gulf, has said he expected Iraq to begin resuming oil exports from the field in three months. But some oil analysts say exports could resume within weeks because U.S. and British forces captured Iraq's main southern pipelines and its Persian Gulf export terminal of Mina al-Bakr intact.
In northern Iraq, Kurdish fighters took control Sunday of more territory left by Iraqi forces, which are withdrawing toward the major oil center of Kirkuk.