Iraq oil exports to resume 'within three weeks'

The acting oil minister of post-war Iraq predicted today that crude production would double within a month and oil exports would resume “within three weeks”.

Thamer al-Ghadhban said Iraq was currently producing 700,000 barrels of oil a day and working hard under US occupation to increase that number as quickly as possible.

“It is a matter of a few weeks, and we can reach 1.3 or 1.5 million barrels a day,” al-Ghadhban said at a coalition-sponsored news conference in the capital.

Pre-war production under Saddam Hussein was about 3 million barrels daily.

Iraq is being watched closely by the world’s financial markets to see when its exports would resume, and al-Ghadhban said it would not be long.

“Within three weeks we will be exporting,” he said, adding an even more optimistic goal: “We hope in two weeks time we will be in the market.”

Oil production is considered pivotal to the rebuilding of post-war Iraq, and the United States wants to use oil profits to fund the country’s reconstruction.

The lifting of UN sanctions on Thursday paved the way for Iraqi oil sales overseas for the first time since the US-led invasion began on March 20.

Officials at Iraq’s state-run oil companies have said in recent days that the country could pump 3.5 million barrels a day by the first quarter of next year, and some new oil fields southern Iraq are just beginning to produce.

During the last seven years of Saddam’s regime, UN sanctions permitted Iraq to sell unlimited amounts of its oil as long as the profits were used to buy food and medicine for its citizens.

However, many accused Saddam of diverting the money to suit his own causes and of selling oil on the black market.