Details of Shell gas deal emerge

The Iraqi government has made public some terms of a potential venture with Royal Dutch Shell to develop Iraq’s enormous natural gas resources.

The details came a day after the Council of Ministers gave preliminary approval to the deal, which was first announced in 2008. Along with junior partner Mitsubishi (5%), Iraq’s South Gas Company (51%) and Shell (44%) would form a consortium called the Basra Gas Company, which would capture natural gas that is currently flared as a waste byproduct of crude oil production in southern Iraq.