Iraq awards 1st post-war oil tender to 6 firms

Iraq's state oil marketing company SOMO awarded on Thursday its first post-war crude tender to six companies for 10 million barrels of oil held in storage.

The winners are Spanish refiners Repsol and Cepsa, Turkish Tupras, Italian ENI and French Total, while ChevronTexaco was the only US company.

Of the 10 million barrels, 5.5 million will go to the European market and four million to the US, the remainder left for "tolerance," said Mohammed al-Jibouri, director general of SOMO.

Total and Chevron together were awarded the four million barrels of crude oil for the US market, with Chevron taking the entire Basrah light volume of two million barrels.

Jibouri refused to reveal prices or details of what volumes had been awarded to the other winners but traders said Italy's ENI had received one million barrels of Kirkuk for Europe.

Of the 10 million barrels tendered by SOMO, Basrah Light comprised two million barrels and Kirkuk eight million barrels.

A total of 52 companies had bid for the tender, and out of that total, three companies did not qualify.

"We did eliminate traders and awarded only to refiners," said SOMO's Jibouri.

SOMO had earlier said it would give preference to refiners over trading companies while awarding the tender.

"I expect the exports to resume in a week or 10 days," Jibouri said. "But we are ready and we are only waiting for the companies to be ready to lift."