Afren Company's 30 Milion Dollars And No "Petroleum Engineering Program"

Afren Company

 

On October 9, 2011- AUIS has announce to have received 30 million dollars from Afren, a gas and oil production company.

American University of Iraq, Sulaimani

The aid, as claimed by AUIS, was to “support the university's overall infrastructure and, in particular, development of a petroleum engineering program that will include a heavy oil research initiative and vocational training courses".

It is worth mentioning that Afren is among the leading companies trying to get KRG's oil contracts. The petroleum engendering department, as was scheduled by AUIS, had to be open in spring. Yet the recent developments show that no petroleum engineering major will be opened at AUIS.

Instead, last week AUIS announced a change, and opened a mechanical engineering major. Rumors around AUIS suggest that the petroleum engineering major is canceled.

 This, as many students believe, came about when on December last year, Dr. Dlawar Qaradaxil, KRG Higher Education Minister, suggested to AUIS president to not open petroleum engineering department at AUIS.

This bothers many students because they came to AUIS to study petroleum engineering as they were promised.

Now the question is, when the petroleum department is not going to be opened at AUIS, what will happen to Afren's 30 million dollars? Or what will be the Afren Company’s response to this unpredicted change? As it's in contrast to what have been promised to Afren before getting the money.