Iraq started pumping oil to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan on Tuesday and was poised to start exports through its Gulf terminal at Mina Al Bakr after a five-week dispute with the United Nations was resolved.
"The flow began at 0952 GMT," Gokhan Yardim, head of Turkey's oil and gas company, told AFP.
Yardim said that four ships were waiting at Ceyhan to load crude once the storage tanks were filled. He could not give a date for the start of the loading.
The Turkish Energy Ministry said in a statement that 5,000 cubic meters of oil per hour was flowing through the 986-kilometer (616-mile) pipeline, which has an annual capacity of 71 million tons.
An industry source at Iraq's Gulf terminal at Mina Al Bakr, meanwhile, told AFP that "exports will resume within hours. Preparations are underway to start loading the first tanker," a Greek-flagged ship.
"Other tankers are awaited," he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The UN has confirmed that Iraq has restarted its petroleum exports
“Iraq has resumed pumping oil this morning under the United Nations oil-for-food program," spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters.
Meanwhile, over the past week, oil overseers approved a new oil purchase contract for 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude, according to the UN office, which oversees the humanitarian relief effort, said the UN online news service. There are currently 178 approved oil contracts covering 580 million barrels of oil.
During the same period, the Security Council committee monitoring the sanctions against Iraq freed up five contracts worth $7.56 million, while placing on hold 50 new contracts valued at $93.3 million, the Office of the Iraq Program said in a statement, cited by the new service. The total value of "holds" now stands at over $3.4 billion.
Iraq suspended exports on June 4 in protest at a US-backed British proposal to impose "smart" sanctions, a project which was shelved at the Security Council last week because of a threatened Russian veto.
Baghdad has been under embargo since its troops invaded Kuwait in 1990.
But Iraq has since December 1996 exported oil from Mina Al Bakr and the Turkish port of Ceyhan in the Mediterranean under the humanitarian program designed to ease the hardships of sanctions on the 22 million inhabitants.
Oil prices in London were stable earlier Tuesday, as brokers had already factored in the resumption of Iraqi supplies, said AFP.
At 1000 GMT the benchmark Brent North Sea crude for August delivery stood at $26.19 a barrel after opening at 26.20. Brent closed at $26.15 on Monday as a heady rally at the end of last week ran out of steam.
According to the agency, the pre-weekend upswing was fueled by a report from the US energy department suggesting that the Iraqi export freeze would push US stocks below normal levels by the end of the summer.
Crude prices had fallen sharply in previous weeks in response to swelling stocks, despite Baghdad's suspension of exports.
On the political front, US Middle East envoy William Burns said on a visit to Yemen that Washington remained committed to imposing "smart" sanctions on Baghdad, AFP quoted him as saying.
Washington is committed to "continuing to work to establish a system which moves away from civilian sanctions against Iraq towards an effective weapons control regime," Burns said.
The system would "ease the burden on the Iraqi people and keep the focus on obligations which the Iraqi regime continues to have," he said in a statement issued in Sanaa, referring to the embargo linked to Iraq's disarmament.
Iraqi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Naji Sabri, meanwhile, said his country insisted on a total lifting of sanctions, according to the agency.
"Iraq rejects any project which does not provide for a total lifting of the unjust embargo," he said on state television. "We met our commitments a long time ago and now it's the turn of the Security Council." – Albawaba.com
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