BAGHDAD (Dow Jones)--Iraq has exported 2.163 million barrels a day of crude oil this month to Feb. 17, the same rate as the previous month, head of the state oil marketing company, or SOMO, said Thursday.
Falah Alamri said there was an increase in this month's exports from the northern oil fields via the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean where some 410,000 barrels a day have been exported this month so far. The remaining barrels of oil were exported from the southern export terminal in Basra which saw a slight decline in exports.
Last month Iraq exported a total of 2.163 million barrels a day.
Iraq has set a target of 2.2 million barrels a day of oil exports in 2011.
Alamri declined to speak about exports from Iraq's Kurdistan region, which is under semi-autonomous rule, that provided some of the country's recent surge in oil exports.
However, independent sources said that the semi-autonomous region in Kurdistan is expected to export an average of 40,000 barrels a day from two oil fields, Tawke and Taq Taq this month.
Norway's DNO International ASA (DNO.OS), which is operating Tawke oil field, said earlier this month that it had concluded testing exports of 10,000 barrels a day from the field.
The Kurdistan Regional Government, known as KRG, said some 100,000 barrels a day could now be exported from the region. Exports from the Kurdish oil fields were suspended briefly after they were started in June 2009 over a dispute with the central government in Baghdad which refused to pay costs incurred by foreign operators of these fields.
Federal Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Thursday that he had agreed with the KRG to resume exports and that his government would pay back companies' costs.
-By Hassan Hafidh; Dow Jones Newswires; +962 799 831 831; hassan.hafidh@dowjones.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110217-711165.html
