June 20, 2003	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 19, 1424

BAGHDAD, June 19: Iraq will resume exporting oil from Sunday, the head of the State Oil Marketing OrganiZation, Mohammed al-Juburi, told AFP on Thursday, over three months after shipments were halted.

“Loading Iraqi petrol stocks from the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea will begin from Sunday, when pumping will also begin,” the official said.

Two Spanish companies, Cepsa and Repsol, as well as Turkish firm Tupras, would receive the first shipments, followed next week by Italy’s Eni and French oil giant Total, he said.

US firm ChevronTexaco would then start loading oil from the port of al-Bakr on the Gulf on June 28, he added.

The shipments will be taken from stocks of some eight million barrels of Kirkuk crude from the northern fields at the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean, and two million barrels of Basra Light lifted in the south.

A senior oil ministry official said earlier this week that exports were due to start from Friday, but Juburi said this was delayed “for technical reasons,” because oil tankers had not yet arrived in the port of Ceyhan.

Iraq last Thursday signed its first oil export contracts since the war, marking the return of its oil to the international market after a three-month suspension, with contracts to buy a total of 9.5 million barrels.

Export sales were halted following the suspension of the UN oil-for-food programme at the beginning of March shortly before the conflict.

French oil company Total, formerly known as TotalFinaElf, said at the time it had won a contract to buy two million barrels and the second-biggest Spanish oil company, Cepsa, said it was buying one million barrels.

Sources at Eni said it had bought an unspecified quantity of Iraqi oil.

The choice of companies reflects the Iraqi oil authorities’ aim to separate politics from business in regard to marketing the country’s oil.—AFP