Cautious: Shell boss Jeroen van der Veer
Shell to wait and see over Iraq
Shell boss Jeroen van der Veer said today that the supermajor will only invest in Iraq if it is confident any legal framework governing oil and gas projects is robust.
In February Iraq's Cabinet endorsed a draft oil law that should help investment by foreign companies and which is crucial to regulating how wealth from the country's vast oil reserves will be shared by its ethnic and sectarian groups.
However, van der Veer said his company was still examining the law and that Shell needed comfort it would not face a different framework in the future before parting with its cash.
"It is not only that you have to think what is the legal system now. In order to invest, you have to have enough trust that it will stick," he told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Paris.
Van der Veer also indicated a preference for negotiating with Baghdad rather than regional governments for oil contracts, saying it would be "very logical" that negotiations would be with a central government.
He added that the security situation in Iraq would also need to be stable to allow investment.