Tuesday June 8, 7:18 pm Eastern Time
Iraq oil exports 1.35 mln bpd as
U.N. deal renewed
NEW YORK, June 8 (Reuters) - Iraqi oil exports
averaged 1.35 million barrels per day in the first four
days of June, marking the smoothest transition yet to a
new phase of the United Nations humanitarian
''oil-for-food'' program.
The export level was down from an average of about
two million bpd in the previous six months, but it was
the least disruptive transition in two-and-a-half years of the program, which must be
renewed every six months.
In the last full week of the fifth sales phase, Iraq exports averaged 2.44 million barrels
per day (bpd). Still, the 1.35 million bpd figure is high relative to the start of previous
sales phases, U.N. figures show.
There was no oil shipped from Iraq from May 29-31. This three-day gap in sales is an
improvement over the nine-day gap between shipments of the fourth and fifth phases
late last year.
There were five liftings in the first four days of June, which for U.N. accounting
purposes is the first oil shipped in the sixth 180-day sales phase, even though the
180-day clock began ticking on May 25. This is because the United Nations allowed
Iraq to sell oil from the fifth phase until May 28.
''This is looking like a smooth, straightforward transition from one phase to another,''
Mills said.
The United Nations also approved 19 more contracts for oil purchases in the week
ending June 4.
For the sixth phase that ends Nov. 20, 33 contracts for oil have been approved
totaling 197.3 million barrels of oil. Of that amount, 59 percent is Basrah Light
shipped from mina al-Bakr with the remainer Kirkuk crude shipped from Ceyhan,
Turkey.
Russian oil firms were awarded contracts totalling 29 million barrels of Iraqi crude in
the week. When added to the first batch of contracts last week, Russian firms -- led by
Zarubezhneft -- account for 109 million barrels of the first 197.2 million barrels
awarded in the sixth phase.
Chinese companies -- Sinochem and China Oil -- have been awarded contracts for
about 30 million barrels of oil.
French companies have been awarded contracts for about 20 million barrels of oil.
So far, only one U.S. company has been awarded a contract, for 3.6 million barrels of
Basrah Light.
In the fifth sales phase, about 45 percent of Iraqi crude sold in the oil-for-food program
ended up in the United States. It's become customary for Iraq's state oil company,
State Oil Marketing Organization, to sell to companies that resell their crude on the
open market.
No British companies were given contracts in the week ending June 4.
Industry sources said Iraq's plan for June crude exports will rise from recent
projections of about 1.6 million bpd.
The oil-for-food program is an exemption from international sanctions on Iraq that
include an oil embargo. Iraq sold about 361 million barrels of oil in the fifth sales
phase, an average of about two million barrels per day.
Iraq's oil ministry said this week it wants to increase its oil production to about three
million bpd by the end of 1999, which means exports of 2.4 million to 2.5 million bpd.
About two-thirds of the proceeds of the oil-for-food sale fund humanitarian supplies for
Iraq's people. |
