Iraq ends month-long suspension of oil exports
Iraq announced it would resume its crude exports starting Wednesday, May 8, 2002, ending a month-long boycott in protest of the Israeli military incursions into the West Bank. An official statement, broadcasted by the state television, expressed regret that other Arab oil producers failed to follow the Iraqi initiative.
Despite the self-imposed Iraqi embargo, oil prices remained stable over the past month as other producers—including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait—publicly opposed the move, arguing against the use of oil as a weapon.
Iraq exports crude under the framework of the United Nations oil-for-food program, which allows for a humanitarian exception to the sanctions imposed on Baghdad after its 1990 invasion into Kuwait.
Iraq’s oil exports, amounting to two million barrels per day (bpd), are transported through Turkey and the Persian Gulf port of Basra and are mostly exported to the United States and European Union. — (menareport.com)
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