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AL-NASHWA, Feb 14, 2012 (AFP) - More than 400 people demonstrated at the entrance of a massive oil field in Iraq on Tuesday, calling on oil giant Shell to give them jobs, before police intervened and arrested two people.
The protesters gathered at the entrance to the Majnoon field in Al-Nashwa area, holding signs with messages such as: "No, no to Shell," "No, no to foreign employees," and "Where are Shell's promises?"
Salah Matar, 45, told AFP: "Shell promised to give job opportunities to our community, but the time is passing and we received no jobs."
"Gas and oil are killing our farms, and we are sitting here with no jobs while they are bringing workers from east Asia and Pakistan," Matar said. "We have priority in this land."
Police broke up the protest about an hour after it began.
Shell Iraq spokesman Diego Perez told AFP when asked about the protest that "we have provided estimated 1,100 unskilled jobs to people in Nashwa, Dyeer and Thager, out of the estimated 1,500 people working in the field today.
"We understand that unemployment is the largest problem in our communities, and we are doing our best to help, but unemployed people largely exceeds the number of jobs we can allocate in Majnoon," he said.
"If there are third-party nationalities in the field, that's because the skills required have not been found within the local communities."
A consortium of Anglo-Dutch Shell and Malaysia's Petronas signed a contract with Iraq in January 2010 to operate the Majnoon field, in southern Iraq.
A port on the Shatt al-Arab waterway with the main purpose of facilitating the transport of equipment to the field was inaugurated on February 7.
Majnoon was discovered in 1975 by Brazilian firm Petrobras but its work was interrupted in 1980 by the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, after 20 wells had been drilled.
In 1990, French firm Total negotiated a contract for the field but was unable to sign due to international sanctions after Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of that year.
Oil sales account for the vast majority of Iraqi government income and around two-thirds of gross domestic product.
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The protesters gathered at the entrance to the Majnoon field in Al-Nashwa area, holding signs with messages such as: "No, no to Shell," "No, no to foreign employees," and "Where are Shell's promises?"
Salah Matar, 45, told AFP: "Shell promised to give job opportunities to our community, but the time is passing and we received no jobs."
"Gas and oil are killing our farms, and we are sitting here with no jobs while they are bringing workers from east Asia and Pakistan," Matar said. "We have priority in this land."
Police broke up the protest about an hour after it began.
Shell Iraq spokesman Diego Perez told AFP when asked about the protest that "we have provided estimated 1,100 unskilled jobs to people in Nashwa, Dyeer and Thager, out of the estimated 1,500 people working in the field today.
"We understand that unemployment is the largest problem in our communities, and we are doing our best to help, but unemployed people largely exceeds the number of jobs we can allocate in Majnoon," he said.
"If there are third-party nationalities in the field, that's because the skills required have not been found within the local communities."
A consortium of Anglo-Dutch Shell and Malaysia's Petronas signed a contract with Iraq in January 2010 to operate the Majnoon field, in southern Iraq.
A port on the Shatt al-Arab waterway with the main purpose of facilitating the transport of equipment to the field was inaugurated on February 7.
Majnoon was discovered in 1975 by Brazilian firm Petrobras but its work was interrupted in 1980 by the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, after 20 wells had been drilled.
In 1990, French firm Total negotiated a contract for the field but was unable to sign due to international sanctions after Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of that year.
Oil sales account for the vast majority of Iraqi government income and around two-thirds of gross domestic product.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
