BAGHDAD, March 19 (UPI) -- The Iraqi oil minister has invited Russian oil companies to exploit 2000 oil wells throughout Iraq, a weekly magazine said Tuesday.
According to Al-Rafidain, Oil Minister Amir Muhammed Rashid said Iraq has a short-term plan to expand its oil production to 4 million barrels per day and aims to increase that number to 7 million barrels per day in the long run.
Iraq currently produces 2.2 million barrels per day within the framework of the U.N. oil-for-food regime under which Baghdad can export limited quantities of crude oil to import humanitarian and medical goods.
However, Western analysts say additional large quantities of Iraqi oil are smuggled to Jordan, Turkey, Syria and the Persian Gulf states, providing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with funds outside U.N. control.
Rashid, on a visit to Moscow, praised the Russian oil companies that he said had played a key role in Iraq's oil industry since the 1970s.
Russian companies have already signed agreements to develop and exploit the al-Qornet oil well in south Iraq, among the largest in the country.
The Iraqi minister said his country had never stopped exporting oil and denied reports that oil extraction had halted in Northern Iraq.
Russia is Iraq's largest trading partner with a volume as high as $6 billion annually.
