Indonesia ministers to sign Iraqi oil deals in Baghdad
Indonesia ministers to sign Iraqi oil deals in Baghdad
BAGHDAD (Reuters): Indonesia will dispatch its trade and energy ministers to Baghdad on Tuesday to conclude oil and trade deals with Iraq under its oil-for-food arrangement with the United Nations, an official at the Indonesian embassy in Baghdad said on Monday.
Councillor Sritomo told Reuters that Minister of Mines and Energy Kuntoro Mangkusubroto and Industry and Trade Minister Rahardi Ramelan would start four-day oil and trade talks with senior Iraqi officials.
He said they will carry a message from President B.J. Habibie to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on "boosting relations especially on oil and economic spheres."
Sritomo said that Habibie received on Sunday a message from Saddam asking fellow OPEC member Indonesia to back Iraq's candidate for the post of OPEC's secretary-general. The letter was delivered by Iraq's Oil Minister Amir Muhammed Rasheed. Iraq has nominated its veteran diplomat Abdel-Amir al-Anbari for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Country's top administrative post.
Sritomo said that Indonesia also remained sympathetic to further candidates for the position proposed by Saudi Arabia and Iran.
He said the Indonesian oil firm Pertamina had sent a draft contract to develop the Tupa oilfield in the south of the country and to carry out oil exploration in the Western Desert.
Discussion on the deals started in 1995, he added.
He said Mangkusubroto will hold fresh talks with the Iraqi Oil Ministry on the contract.
Sritomo said Indonesia had bought 10 million barrels of crude from Iraq under phases two and four of the oil-for-food deal with the United Nations.
The oil deal allows Iraq to sell limited quantities of oil to buy food, medicine and other necessities for the Iraqi population reeling under stringent U.N. sanctions imposed for Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Sritomo said that Indonesia had sold $74.460 million worth of goods to Iraq under the first five phases of the oil pact, now into its sixth phase. These included foodstuffs, mainly tea and cooking oil, and detergents.
He said that an 80-strong delegation will accompany the two ministers. They included businessmen from 50 Indonesian trading companies.
"Before the sanctions, Iraq was the number one market for Indonesian goods," he said.