New refinery planned for Amara

 

By Bassem al-Sheik Ali

 

Relative stability in the southern city of Amara has encouraged private entrepreneurs to draw plans for the construction a refinery, a power plant and a liquefied gas factory.

 

The local branch of business and industry chambers in the city has set up a “consultancy board to energize the role of the private sector,” said Ali Jaber.

 

“We are preparing for the construction of a refinery and have submitted a feasibility study to the Ministry of Oil,” Jaber, who leads Amara’s business chambers, said.

 

Jaber said the city entrepreneurs were also planning other projects “among them an electricity generation station.”

 

Amara is the capital of the Province of Missan where some of the richest undeveloped Iraqi oil fields are situated.

 

The provincial capital is home to nearly 40% of the province’s population estimated at 1.1 million.

 

The province borders Iran and includes the Marsh Arabs homeland which the former President Saddam Hussein had drained to punish its restive population.

 

As a result more than 100,000 Marsh Arabs were displaced when their wetlands began to dry and turn into desert.

 

Jaber gave no details on how his chamber plans to finance the refinery.