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Baghdad (AFP) Dec 27, 2010 Iraq's oil output has risen to more than 2.6 million barrels a day, its highest level for two decades, Oil Minister Abdulkarim al-Luaybi said Monday after a ceremony to mark his official takeover of the ministry. "Today, our production is over 2.6 million barrels per day," Luaybi told reporters after the ceremony. "This figure has not been reached for more than 20 years." Luaybi, who was previously a deputy oil minister, took over from Hussein al-Shahristani, who oversaw the signing of billions of dollars in oil deals that paved the way for global energy majors to return to Iraq more than 30 years after Saddam Hussein kicked them out. Shahristani is now a deputy prime minister. "We know that developing Iraq's economy and providing funds for finishing projects and providing jobs for people all depend on revenue from oil," Luaybi said in his speech at the handover ceremony, saying the ministry would meet the challenge. He said the ministry would "reactivate the role of the exploration teams and geological surveys in order to strengthen national production," and also emphasized previously-announced plans to expand oil sector infrastructure. These plans include "projects to expand oil and gas pipelines, and make good use of the gas that comes out with the extraction of oil," he said. "New large refineries" will also be established, Luaybi said, adding that "Iraq will be transformed into a country that exports" petroleum products. Oil ministry spokesman Assim Jihad said there are plans to build three new pipelines to Syria -- one with 1.5 million barrels per day capacity, another with a capacity of 1.25 million bpd and a third for gas. A new set of pipelines is also planned for southern Iraq, to increase export capacity to 4.5 million bpd, he said. The current export capacity for the southern Basra terminal is about 1.8 million bpd. Jihad said that four new refineries will be built: one with a 300,000 bpd capacity in Nasiriyah, a 140,000 bpd refinery in Karbala, a third in Maysan with 150,000 bpd capacity and a fourth in Kirkuk with a capacity of 150,000 bpd. They are to be completed in three to five years. With his takeover of the ministry, Luaybi also inherits Baghdad's long-running dispute over contracts signed by the autonomous Kurdistan region, with confusion over whether the central government would approve the deals. The Kurdish regional government says it has signed 37 contracts with 40 international companies, amounting to an investment of 10 billion dollars when completed, for oil exploration and production since 2004. Baghdad has previously said the deals are not binding as they have not been approved by the central government, while Kurdistan says they are in line with the constitution. Luaybi was on Saturday quoted by Dow Jones Newswires as saying in Cairo that Iraq would recognise the Kurdish contracts. But Jihad said Monday that the issue has not yet been discussed by the ministry, much less resolved. "The ministry has not yet discussed the issue of recognising the Kurdistan contracts," he said. He said it has been decided "Kurdistan will hand over 150,000 barrels to the ministry of oil, the ministry will export this oil, and the government and finance ministry will pay the real costs of the production to the companies."
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