BAGHDAD, 20 June 2003 — Iraq will resume exporting oil from Sunday, the head of the State Oil Marketing Organization, Mohammed Al-Juburi, told AFP yesterday, over three months after shipments were halted.

“Loading Iraqi petrol stocks from the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea will begin Sunday, when pumping will also begin,” the official said.

Two Spanish companies, Cepsa and Repsol, as well as Turkish firm Tupras, would receive the first shipments, followed next week by Italy’s Eni and French oil giant Total, he said.

US firm ChevronTexaco would then start loading oil from the port of Al-Bakr on the Gulf on June 28, he added.

The shipments will be taken from stocks of some eight million barrels of Kirkuk crude from the northern fields at the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean, and two million barrels of Basra Light lifted in the south.

Oil prices fell in the wake of Iraq’s announcement, although with exports likely to be minimal for some months, the main price mover was an unexpected increase in US oil inventories announced Wednesday, analysts said.

In London, the price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for August delivery fell 25 cents to $26.01 a barrel.

New York’s benchmark light sweet crude contract for July delivery dipped 36 cents lower to $30.00 a barrel in out-of-hours electronic deals.

A senior Oil Ministry official said earlier this week that exports were due to start Friday, but Juburi said this was delayed “for technical reasons,” because oil tankers had not yet arrived in the port of Ceyhan.

Iraq last Thursday signed its first oil export contracts since the war, marking the return of its oil to the international market after a three-month suspension, with contracts to buy a total of 9.5 million barrels.

Export sales were halted following the suspension of the UN oil-for-food program at the beginning of March shortly before the conflict.

French oil company Total, formerly known as TotalFinaElf, said at the time it had won a contract to buy two million barrels and the second-biggest Spanish oil company, Cepsa, said it was buying one million barrels.

Sources at Eni said it had bought an unspecified quantity of Iraqi oil.

The choice of companies reflects the Iraqi oil authorities’ aim to separate politics from business in regard to marketing the country’s oil.

US officials had threatened to exclude French companies from the allocation of contracts for reconstructing Iraq because of France’s opposition to the war to oust Saddam Hussein.