Iraq is currently exporting 1.2 million barrels of oil per day from the south but virtually nothing from the north and must urgently fix this, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi said on Saturday. "The current oil export is 1.2 million barrels a day from the south. (It is) very limited, nothing almost, from the north, and this must be fixed very quickly," Chalabi told Reuters at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Exports were up slightly from the 1.1 million bdp average in December, when the flow was the lowest since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Insurgents blew up at least two pipelines on Wednesday, halting exports through the northern pipeline to Turkey just one week after they had resumed. Sabotage attacks have mostly paralysed the line since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Bad weather has also hit exports from Iraq's main exporting terminal Basra. Exports restarted on Friday after a five-day halt due to storms and logistical problems. Oil exports are the source of most of Iraq's foreign revenues, badly needed to reconstruct its war and sanction-battered economy.
