Non-existence of financing behind Gas contract with Shell, Southern Iraq’s Gas Company’s Director says

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: Southern Iraq’s Gas Company’s Director has said on Tuesday that the absence of local financing to invest the national gas locally, in its offering for investment and Shell Company‘s winning of its investment contract. “Before signing the contract with Shell, we had several plans to invest the gas nationally and planning to build up the infrastracture for that,” Ali Hussein Khudhier told IraqiNews.com news agency. He said that after “meetings with the Oil Ministry’s Economic Committee, it was noticed that it had been difficult to obtain necessary financing for same,” he said, adding that “the building of the Project of Southern Gas Company for Oil Investment nationally, demanded 5.17 billion (b) US dollars, incuding 14 billions out of it on the earh and 3.5 billions, to be allocated to build a plant in the Arab gulf.” Khudhier, a former Iraqi Planning Minister, said: “We can’t achieve such amount over the forthcoming 6 years, that is why we found the solution in foreign investment, according to Iraqi plans.”