Iraq about capability of significant oil export reduction

/IRBIS, Feb.14, 00/ - ITAR TASS informs about the Iraq oil minister Amer Rashid statement in the CNN interview. As he said, volumes of Iraq oil export will decreased considerably, if the purchased at the U.N.O. approval petroleum equipment will not be urgently delivered to this country. "We can reduce oil export by a quarter of million barrels per day or more" - the Iraq minister has warned. As he said, Iraq not capable to continue export in the present volume. According to the U.N.O. experts, Iraq oil export in the last week of January has decreased to 1.4 million barrels per day in comparison with 1.86 million barrels in the previous week and 2.66 million barrels in the end of December 1999. At the present unstable world petroleum market, loss even of 0.25 million barrels per day can caused a new turn of the rise in oil prices. Mainly, the Iraq export suffers from the disastrous condition of the Mina-Al'- Bakr petroleum terminal in the Persian gulf. The second export line - oil pipeline Kirkuk - Turkish port of Ceyhan, according to the Iraq data, also requires a reparation. Theoreticaly, according to the U.N.O. program "oil for the foods", Bagdad has the right to import petroleum equipment to the sum of 300 million dollars for one half-year. But Iraq complains constantly that the sanctions commission do not approve the contracts concluded with the foreign companies, or they are suspended by the USA representatives, and till now only small part from the ordered equipment has arrived in the country.