Iraq’s Oil Ministry plans to hold an investor road show in London on 14 December to invite interest in the construction of a multi-billion dollar crude oil export pipeline critical to diversifying the country’s export options.

Invited developers and engineering firms will be shown detailed presentations on the financing for the pipeline, along with technical outlines and a commercial model covering capital and operating expenditure, according to a source close to the project.

The 1 million barrels a day (b/d) pipeline will be tendered using a 20-year build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) contract, the first time the contracting model has been used in Iraq. It will stretch from Haditha in the western Anbar province through Jordan to a terminal at Aqaba.

The BOOT contracts have been drawn up by Canada’s SNC Lavalin, which was appointed in May 2011 as the project management consultant for the export link.

The pipeline will be supplied with crude oil from the south of Iraq through a separate line from Pumping Station-1 in Basra with a capacity of 2.25 million b/d. This segment will be tendered separately on an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis, and handled by State Company for Oil Projects (SCOP), a subsidiary of the Oil Ministry.

A previous pipeline route considered by the Oil Ministry passed through Syria, although the civil war has put this back on the shelf for now.