BAGHDAD—Iraq's crude oil exports rose to 59.6 million barrels in January, up 6 percent from December, the Oil Ministry said Tuesday.
Iraq's average production stood at 2.4 million barrels per day in January while exports reached an average of 1.92 million barrels per day, the ministry's figures showed.
December's exports averaged 1.81 million barrels per day.
Exports sold at an average price of $80 a barrel in January and grossed a total of $4.813 billion in January -- a 2.6 percent increase from December's revenues which stood at $4.689 billion.
Still, an enormous difference in output remained between the southern port of Basra, which exported an average of 1.54 million barrels daily, and the northern city of Kirkuk, which exported nearly 380,000 barrels per day.
Last year, Iraq's oil exports rose 9.2 percent, largely because improved security allowed shipments through a key northern pipeline from the Kirkuk oil fields to Turkey's Ceyhan terminal on the Mediterranean Sea.
The pipeline, which was often halted in past years due to sabotage, is now pumping more than 300,000 barrels per day.
Total oil exports in 2007 reached nearly 600 million barrels, an average of 1.6 million per day. The vast majority of the oil was exported from Basra, while nearly 40 million barrels were exported from the north.
More than 70 international firms met the oil ministry's deadline of Feb. 18 and registered to compete to help develop Iraq's oil reserves, seen as vital for generating money to rebuild the shattered country.
Iraq has not said what fields it will tender, or on what terms, but the service and extraction contracts offered are seen as a stopgap until a new oil law is passed.
In dire need of expertise from international oil companies to achieve the oil ministry's target of 3 million barrels per day by the end of 2008, Iraq decided to rely on a Saddam Hussein-era law. That law will last until Parliament approves a new one to regulate international oil companies' work and share Iraq's oil resources among the country's Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
