Falah Khawaja, director general ofadministrative department in the Iraqi oil ministry, confirmed thecontinuity of exporting oil through the Iraqi harbors in the south."The exporting rates are not measured daily but weekly andaccording to the usual standards," he told Xinhua.

In an answer about the fluctuation and instability of theexported quantities, he answered, "Sometimes the exportedquantities are not large for different reasons, like the windswhich greatly influence the shipping operations if they werestrong."

"Sometimes ships are late for a specific appointment, but whenmeasured weekly, the operations are conducted regularly accordingto the standards decided by the ministry," he added.

"In spite of the attacks that targeted the oil pipelines in someof the southern areas, which reached up to eight attacks last week,I can say that the oil exporting rates are conducted according tousual standards," he said without giving more details.

About the parties standing behind the attacks against the Iraqioil institutions, Al Khawaja said, "I don't think that an Iraqiseeking the interest of Iraqis would attack the oil institutions.""But the enemies of Iraqis, who want to deprive them of enjoyingtheir wealth and prevent them from overcoming their difficulties,are behind those attacks, which cause a lot of losses that theIraqis need at this point," he said.

Al Khawaja refuse to give the quantities of the oil exportednowadays, "I don't have numbers about the volume of oil exports,but I know it is done according to plan."

Thamir Al Ghadhban, the Iraqi oil minister, announced that theterrorist attacks against the oil institutions during the pastmonths caused Iraq more than 5 billion US dollars.

Nevertheless, news contradicted concerning the quantities ofIraqi oil exported, some said exporting stopped, while others saidit decreased when Mehdi Army, the militia of Muqtada Al Sadr, theyoung Shiite leader, attacked eight pipelines in Basra, 550 kmsouth of Baghdad.

The Iraqi oil institutions suffered more than 250 attacks sincethe toppling of the regime of the former Iraqi president SaddamHussein in April 2003, which sometimes caused the halt of oilexporting through the south and the north.

Oil experts said the attacks targeting the oil transportationpipelines influenced the quantities of the oil exported for alittle time, but the problem was overcome and the quantities werelater compensated after the pipes were repaired.

Source: Xinhua