10.07.2003 | ThursdayBP, Shell Confirm Wining Crude Tender from Iraq .
BP and Shell confirmed Wednesday that they had each won the right to purchase 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil put up for tender this week.
News: It was understood that Iraqs State Oil Marketing Organization put up 8 million barrels of Basra light crude on sale and the US energy group ChevronTexaco Corp. and Swiss trading firm Taurus also won bids for similar-sized lots of oil. Spokesmen for BP and Shell said the two companies planned to load the oil later this month and BP would ship its oil to the United States, while Shell refused to say where it expected to sell its crude. The deal is believed to be the first sale of crude pumped in Iraq since the end of the Iraq war. BP and Shell both bid unsuccessfully in an earlier offer of Iraqi crude that had been in storage. Iraq will start loading the crude Friday from the Gulf terminal of Mina al-Bakr, an Iraqi oil official in Baghdad was quoted as saying earlier. (Rig Zone)