Movement on Iraq-Jordan pipeline project

Iraq’s State Company for Oil Projects, commonly referred to as SCOP, on Sunday invited companies to a roadshow for the Iraq Strategic Crude Oil Export Pipeline Project, its label for the much-delayed Iraq-Jordan pipeline.

In its invitation, SCOP calls on contractors that have submitted their engineering, procurement, construction and financing proposal for the Iraqi leg of the pipeline to attend. The announcement lends credit to claims by people familiar with the work made back in March that the project could see movement in early 2017.

At the time it was argued that EPC packages for the re-routed first section of the pipeline, now running from Basra to Najaf instead of Haditha, were ready to be tendered. Sources in March also said that a bid had been submitted for the second leg of the pipeline, from Najaf to Aqaba, Jordan, by a Jordanian-Chinese consortium. Work on this section would be executed on a build, own, operate, transfer basis, congruent with the original plans drawn up four years ago.