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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: edward miller who wrote (65500)	4/29/2000 7:09:00 PM
From: monu	Respond to of 95453

Iraq increasing output to 8.5 billion. Iraq: Oil Exports To Surpass $8.5B By WAIEL FALEH .c The Associated Press BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq said Saturday it would export more than $8.5 billion worth of oil in its current six-month phase, a record for its earnings under the U.N. oil-for-food program. In forecasting such high revenue for the phase ending late May, Iraq also signaled it was implementing part of the U.N. Security Council resolution it had rejected. The announcement was made in a statement by Oil Minister Amer Mohammed Rashid to the official Iraqi News Agency. The U.N. program used to limit Iraq to selling $5.2 billion in oil every six months. Iraq was allowed to exceed the limit only with special dispensation. However, the security council passed a resolution in December offering Iraq certain incentives - such as the abolishment of the $5.2 billion cap - to encourage it to allow a resumption of disarmament inspections. The sanctions - imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 - can be lifted only when experts report that Iraq is free of has destroyed its weapons of mass destruction. Iraq claims to have done so, and has refused to let arms inspectors in the country. Iraq condemned the council's resolution. Only last month, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz dismissed it as ``an evil resolution drafted by the United States and Britain to keep sanctions in place.'' But Rashid said President Saddam Hussein had recently ordered the Oil Ministry to do everything in its power to increase production to the maximum. The ministry responded by drawing up a program to improve services and increase both the quantity and the quality of oil offered for export, Rashid said. However, the minister reiterated the Iraqi complaint that U.S. and British representatives on the U.N. sanctions committee were delaying contracts for spare parts required for the oil industry. The United States and Britain said they held up contracts because they contained items that could have a dual military use. But their governments have come under increasing pressure, driven in part by media pictures and U.N. reports on the suffering of Iraqi civilians after nearly 10 years of sanctions. The oil-for-food program allows Iraq to bypass the sanctions if the oil proceeds are spent on food, medicine and humanitarian goods for the Iraqi people. AP-NY-04-29-00 1641E