February 26, 2003	Wednesday	Zul Hijjah 24, 1423

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25: The volume of oil exported by Iraq under UN supervision was again stable last week at 11.9 million barrels, the office administering the UN oil-for-food programme said on Tuesday.

The sales, equivalent to 1.7 million barrels a day, generated an estimated $338 million in revenue, compared with 315 million dollars the previous week, when Iraq exported 11.4m barrels.

In the week ending February 21, there were four loadings from the Gulf port of Mina al-Bakr and seven from the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, the only outlets permitted under UN sanctions imposed on Iraq in August 1990.

Six new oil export contracts were approved by the independent oil supervisors, taking to 127 the number approved since the start of the current 180-day phase of the programme on Dec 5.

The contracts cover 333m barrels of oil, of which 130.5m barrels have been shipped out of Iraq for revenue totalling $3.6 billion in the first 11 weeks of the current phase.—AFP