LONDON/DUBAI, 21 March 2003 — Oil tankers were loading as scheduled at Gulf ports outside of embattled Iraq yesterday as the first US missiles rained down on Baghdad, leading shipping companies said.

OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait all said they were pumping and exporting oil as usual from the region which provides 40 percent of global exports, amounting to 16 million barrels per day (bpd).

“It’s business as usual. We really don’t expect any interference with shipping at this stage,” Ola Lorentzon, managing director of the world’s largest oil tanker firm Norway’s Frontline, told Reuters. The US Navy warned merchant shipping last week that Iraq could lace Gulf waterways with mines.

In the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, dubbed the tanker war, oil tankers and merchant ships were attacked regularly.

Lorentzon said he had received no reports of disruption to loadings in the northern Gulf. Svein Erik Amundsen, managing director of Norwegian shipping giant Bergesen, which owns a large oil tanker fleet said: “There are no immediate signs of military activity (in Gulf waters) and we are going about our business in the Arabian Gulf as we usually do.”

A senior Kuwaiti shipping executive said oil tankers were arriving and loading normally in the northern Gulf amid the US air bombardment and missile attacks in northern Kuwait.

And, at top OPEC exporter Saudi Arabia’s main east coast loading terminal of Ras Tanura, crude oil loadings were proceeding normally. Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi said the Kingdom’s oil facilities and export terminals were running smoothly and were prepared to meet any eventuality.

“Production and exporting centers in the Kingdom are working in line with market requirements and shipping operations are regular,” Naimi said. “All measures have been taken to guarantee the pumping of supplies according to available output capacity in the Kingdom. All exporting terminals in the east and west and pipelines are ready to respond to any emergency.” Industry sources said one supertanker had just finished loading and was about to set sail.

“The captain of the vessel that just loaded wasn’t in a hurry to get away,” said the Western industry source, adding there were no signs of reluctance to enter the Gulf.

Major Gulf producer Iran yesterday said it was pumping oil as normal and scheduled vessels were loading without any cancellations.

Tanker owner Amundsen said he was not dissuading ships from entering the northern reaches of the Gulf. “We have a handful of vessels in the Strait of Hormuz as of today,” he told Reuters.

Knud Pontoptidan, executive vice president of Danish oil and shipping giant A.P Moeller was similarly upbeat. “As far as I am aware there has been no disruption either to the situation in general or to us,” he told Reuters. The group’s fleet, trading under Maersk Sealand, is one of the largest in the world with 250 tankers, container vessels and car carriers.

In Turkey, Iraqi crude at the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan was still loading oil, but Iraq’s Gulf oil terminals were out of bounds, tanker owners said.

Asian shipping and oil industry feedback also suggested normal operations. The South Korean Energy Ministry said two supertankers carrying crude were steaming out of the Gulf and another five had departed for Middle Eastern ports yesterday.