On the Iraqi oil

Oil sources in London on Thursday expressed their conviction that Iraq continues to pump more than 100,000 barrels of oil daily to Syria, without an official announcement in that, despite the current American pressures in order to put the Iraqi oil exports to the neighboring states under control, while Baghdad has considered the "smart sanctions" US project aims to " squeezing it" stressing that this project will be doomed to failure.

Oil industry sources in London said that the Iraqi supplies of the Syrian refineries through a pipeline which was re-opened by the end of the year 2000 avails Syria to allocate greater amounts of its crude oil for exportation.

In the year 2000 the average of Syrian oil exports reached 330,000 barrels a day. But this figure increased at 100,000 barrels a day so far in this year. Exports will increase this month to 135,000 barrels a day as from the average of the year 2000.

A buyer for the Syrian crude oil said that Syria did not lessen the volumes of refining operations but it sells more because it gets more oil from the Iraqis.

Another buyer said:" no body can make sure but due to the continued increase in the volume of the Syrian oil this very possibility ( of Iraqi oil coming to Syria) is there." However, the exportation of the Iraqi oil to Syria and other neighboring states like Turkey and Jordan yields millions of USD to Iraq, without the supervision of the UN which is in charge of monitoring the exports through the oil for food program.