Iraqi petrol exports earn $370 million under UN's oil-for-food scheme

Iraqi oil revenues for the week ending 28 February totalled $370 million, raising the daily average for the month by 4.6 per cent over January under the United Nations oil-for-food programme, which allows Baghdad to use a portion of its petroleum sales to buy relief supplies.

Exports for the week totalled 13.2 million barrels compared with 11.9 million in the previous week. Total exports for February were 48.50 millions barrels - an average of 1.73 million barrels per day against January's 1.66 million, the UN Office of the Iraq Programme (OIP) said today.

There were eight loadings from the authorized terminals: four from the Iraqi oil platform at Mina al-Bakr (8.0 million barrels) and four from the Turkish Mediterranean oil terminal at Ceyhan (5.2 million barrels). These are the only outlets for Iraqi oil exports allowed under OIP.

Meanwhile the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported today that more than 4 million Iraqi children have been vaccinated against polio in a campaign run jointly by UNICEF and Iraq's Health Ministry.

Preliminary results show that the campaign reached 98 per cent of a targeted 4.2 million children in all 18 governorates, including three controlled by Kurds. "This tremendous result was achieved through the dedication of 14,000 Iraqi health workers, from over 880 different health clinics in the country," UNICEF said.