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State of emergency won't hit Iraq oil exports

Vienna, June 10, 2014

Oil Minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi said on Tuesday that any state of emergency in Iraq would not have an impact on oil exports.

Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki has asked parliament to declare a state of emergency after Sunni Islamist insurgents seized control of most of the country's second largest city, Mosul, in the north.

Shipments of Kirkuk crude from northern Iraq have stayed offline since a bomb blast halted the oil flow along the pipeline to Turkey on March 2.

Luaibi said the state of emergency would not include Basra, the port for the majority of Iraq's oil exports from its giant southern fields.

He said the oil ministry had also been pushing the government to deploy military force as protection for its northern pipeline.

In the event of prolonged disruption to the Kirkuk crude pipeline, Luaibi said some eight oil product pipelines linked to the Baiji refinery near Baghdad could be used to transfer crude from the north for domestic use.

Luaibi was in Vienna for Wednesday's Opec meeting. - Reuters
 




Tags: Oil | Iraq | Mosul |

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