Iraq will increase oil production to two million barrels daily

The Iraqi oil minister Ibrahim Baher al-Aloum said yesterday that Iraq intends to increase its oil exports to two million barrels daily by the end of the first quarter of 2004.

Baher al-Aloum said in Vienna, where he had arrived unannounced to attend the meeting of OPEC today, "we plan to export two billions barrels of oil every day by the end of the first quarter of 2004." Baher al-Aloum, who was the first to arrive in Vienna among his peers at OPEC, headed for his pavilion in one of the greater hotels in the downtown of Vienna giving no comments to to the press.

A source close to OPEC said that the address of the hotel in which he stayed was not disclosed to journalists "for security reasons."