TOKYO: Japanese engineering company JGC Holdings Corp. has been in the final stages of talks with the Iraqi government to renovate a refinery in the Middle East country, informed sources said Monday.

A formal agreement on the project, estimated at some 400 billion yen, is expected to be made as soon as late August, the sources said.

The project will be financed fully by yen loans from the Japan International Cooperation Agency, making it one of Tokyo’s largest reconstruction aid programs for postwar Iraq.

Under the project, the capacity of the refinery in Basra, built in the 1970s, will expand to 160,000 barrels of gasoline and diesel fuel a day, up from the current 60,000 barrels. It will create 7,000 local jobs and be complete by 2025.

Iraq is the ninth-largest crude oil supplier to Japan. Stability in Iraq is likely to help strengthen Japan’s energy security.

JIJI Press