Sit-in demo by south Iraq’s Ahdab Oil Field’s Protection workers

WASSIT / IraqiNews.com: Dozens of protection workers in southern Iraq ’s Ahdab Oil Field, west of the city of Kut , have started a sit-in demonstration in front of the Field’s main entrance on Wednesday, demanding the increase of their salaries and raising them to permanent staff level.   “The work of the oil-protection workers in Ahdab Oil Field is very dangerous, whether by the security protection for the field’s appliances or for the staff of the Chinese Company investing in the field,” Samir Sabah, one of the organizers of the sit-in demonstration told IraqiNews.com news agency.   Sabah said that “dozens of Oil Protection employees have stopped work today (Wednesday) till the implementation of their demands to increase their average monthly salary that does not exceed 350,000 dinars along with raising their status from contract to permanent status.   His Colleague, Hussein al-Tamimy, said that “the sit-in demonstrators are demanding their legal rights and nothing else, in order to make them equal to their colleagues from the police,” pointing out that there are threats to impose administrative sanctions against the sit-in demonstrators.”   The Chinese Oasis Company had started work in implementing the Ahdab Oil Field in April, 2009, investing about US$3 billions (b) to produce crude oil, with a capacity of 115,000 barrels per day (bpd), as a first stage, and it is hoped that the productive capacity would increase to 200,000 bpd in the oil field that was discovered in 1979 with a total reserve of 225 million barrels of oil.   Kut, the center of Wassit Province , is 180 km to the southeast of Baghdad .   SKH (RT)