Anbar council OKs putting up gas field for investment

ANBAR / IraqiNews.com: The Anbar provincial council approved putting up the Akkaz gas field for investment, the province’s deputy governor said on Friday. “An integrated study on this investment project was drawn up, waiting for a government approval,” Hekmat Jassem told IraqiNews.com news agency in statements on Friday. “There are several Iraqi, Arab and foreign corporations seeking an investment projects in al-Anbar, including the Akkaz natural gas field,” he added. Jassem pointed out that the project would be a first significant step on the road to eliminate unemployment, noting the project should offer more than 100,000 job opportunities in the different engineering and technical fields. A spokesman for the Iraqi oil ministry had said in early May that the ministry was ready to deliver natural gas to the European Union (EU) countries, adding Iraq would be able to do this if it developed the Akkaz field in western Iraq. The predominantly Sunni province of al-Anbar lies 110 km west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. AmR (P) 1