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Revista Brasileira de Tecnologia e Negócios de Petróleo, Gás, Petroquímica, Química Fina e Indústria do Plástico

Iraq Plans Significant Oil Amount Via N Pipe In 1-2 Mos

Fonte: Dow Jones

Date: 28/05/2007 00:00

Iraq plans to start pumping "significant" quantities of crude oil through its northern oil export pipeline in the next one or two months, the country`s oil minister said Friday.

"It is difficult to say...If there are no attacks in one or two months, we should be able to take it to 300,000 barrels (a day)," Hussein al-Shahristani told a press conference.

Shahristani is on an official visit to India.

The northern pipeline is capable of pumping 500,000 barrels of crude oil each day but repeated attacks by insurgents have forced the pipeline to virtually shut down for last six months.

A bulk of Iraq crude oil is exported from southern oil terminals.

Separately, the minister denied Iraqi officials were negotiating with Kurdish representatives on how to distribute oil revenues under a controversial draft oil and gas law.

Kurds, who dominate the northern part of the country have been demanding their share of revenues be given directly to them, bypassing the central government`s Finance Ministry.

"No they are not asking for that either. Iraq constitution is very clear that oil and gas are the property of Iraqi people and among the first things that was agreed upon by Iraqi`s including Kurdish Regional Government was that oil revenues will be collected in a federal reserve," he said.

"They are negotiating the mechanism for the release of their portion of budget to them because now they say the Federal Finance Ministry is sometimes delaying release of their portion of the budget that is allocated to them," he added.

To a question on the proposed law vesting nearly 90% of the country`s oil reserves under a yet to established government oil company, he said only a small portion of the potential reserves are proposed to vested with the company.

"Discovered fields in Iraq are only a small portion. So there are much greater possibilities for oil companies to find new fields and work on it," he said.