TEHRAN (PIN) – Iranian and Iraqi oil ministers here Friday night signed a contract on the construction of crude oil and oil products transmission pipelines.

According to the Petroleum Ministry, Iran’s Minister of Petroleum Seyyed Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh and his Iraqi counterpart Hussain al-Shahristani reached an agreement on the framework of the contract on laying pipelines for the transfer of crude oil and oil derivatives from one country to another.
“We held talks with Iraqi oil minister Friday evening in a bid to follow up the memorandum of understanding (MOU) the two sides signed last year,” said Vaziri-Hamaneh, adding the two parties agreed to implement some part of the last year’s agreements.
He added both sides agreed to lay a 32 inch pipeline to pump crude oil from Basra to Abadan and to construct a 16 inch pipeline to transmit oil products.
“Based on the agreement, Iran will purchase 100 thousand barrels of crude oil from Iraq to refine in Bandar Abbas according to the international formulas and will sell oil derivatives to Iraq,” added the minister.
The two sides also agreed that Iraq would pipe as much as crude oil it needed to the Abadan Refinery and would receive oil products, said the official.
Vaziri-Hamaneh called Iran-Iraq cooperation in different fields of energy sector positive and added, “In addition to the Friday’s agreement, we have signed various contracts on supply of products Iraq requires and they are underway.”
The petroleum minister shifted to bilateral cooperation in the field of crude production and said, “At present, the two states are holding negotiations on development and production of shared fields and we hope they will be finalized soon.
“Concerning contracts on oil exploration in the two countries’ fields, we have not yet held talks, but the two sides have voiced their willingness to promote cooperation in all areas of the energy sector.”
Vaziri-Hamaneh expressed his satisfaction over Friday’s agreement, wishing the contracts would serve the two neighboring states’ national interests.
“We hope to help Iraqi people who are experiencing tough conditions have a good winter,” said the top official.
The initial agreement on the construction of the 40 kilometer pipeline that will transfer oil from Iraq’s oil fields southwest of the port of Basra to Iran’s Abadan Refinery, was signed in mid-2005.
A supplement to the initial agreement was an oil swap arrangement which foresaw an equivalent amount of Iranian light crude sold on behalf of Iraq at Iran’s Kharg Island terminal in the Persian Gulf for around 350,000 barrels a day of Basra light crude shipped to the Abadan Refinery.