Shell evacuation reveals cracks in Basra Gas Company consortium
Protests that prompted an emergency evacuation in May were caused by a breakdown in payments and cooperation between Shell and its government partners.
Basra Gas Company (BGC) workers break through a security gate topped with barbed wire to enter the residential compound of Royal Dutch Shell on May 18, 2020. (ALI AL-AQILY/Iraq Oil Report)
BASRA - When angry workers stormed through the gates of the Basra Gas Company (BGC) last month, prompting the emergency evacuation of Royal Dutch Shell's foreign staff, the protest was a dramatic result of a simple problem: nobody was getting paid.
The Iraqi government was not paying the BGC consortium; the consortium was not paying its constituent companies; and the state-run South Gas Company (SGC), running short of cash, was not paying thousands of its workers who had been seconded to the project. As the consortium partners haggled over a stopgap plan for providing salaries, workers lost their patience.
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