Iraq has boosted its oil exports to almost 2 million barrels a day
after reopening a pipeline to Turkey and hopes to sharply raise output
in 2008, a senior oil official said Wednesday.
Falah Alamri, director general of Iraq's State Oil Marketing
Organization, told an international security forum exports were now
about 1.8 to 1.9 million barrels a day, boosted by the 300,000 barrels
a day now going from the northern Kirkuk region to the Turkish
Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
Alamri said security had also improved on the southern pipeline which runs through the port of Basra but gave no details.
The northern pipeline reopened in August having been largely
paralyzed by attacks and the decrepit state of Iraq's oil
infrastructure since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
"So far Kirkuk has managed to export all of the oil that it has produced," Falah told the conference.
He said Iraq was now producing about 2.5 million barrels a day
of oil and was planning to increase production to 3 million barrels a
day by the end of 2008. He said production could be increased to 6
million barrels a day within six years.
But he said the country still needs international help to
prevent attacks on pipelines, production facilities and other
infrastructure over the next four years. Oil is by far Iraq's biggest
source of revenue.