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U.S. monthly death toll drops to new low * Iraq says oil production at post-war high * Australia pulls out combat troops By Ross Colvin BAGHDAD, June 1 (Reuters) - U.S. troop deaths in Iraq fell to their lowest level last month since the 2003 invasion and officials said on Sunday improved security also helped the country boost oil production in May to a post-war high. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Iraq's oil minister credited better security for the two milestones, which illustrated a dramatic turnabout in the fortunes of a country on the brink of all-out sectarian civil...

Iraq dramatically increased the official size of its oil reserves yesterday after new data suggested that they could exceed Saudi Arabia's and be the largest in the world. The Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister told The Times that new exploration showed that his country has the world's largest proven oil reserves, with as much as 350 billion barrels. The figure is triple the country's present proven reserves and exceeds that of Saudi Arabia's estimated 264 billion barrels of oil. Barham Salih said the new estimate had been based on recent geological surveys and seismic data compiled by “reputable, international oil companies...

BAGHDAD — As Congress gears up to debate the Bush administration's latest request for an additional $108 billion in war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, Iraqis are fuming at suggestions being floated by lawmakers that Baghdad should start paying a share of the war's costs by providing cheap fuel to the U.S. military. "America has hardly even begun to repay its debt to Iraq," said Abdul Basit, the head of Iraq's Supreme Board of Audit, an independent body that oversees Iraqi government spending. "This is an immoral request because we didn't ask them to come to Iraq, and before they...

Iraq's financial free ride may be over. After five years, Republicans and Democrats seem to have found common ground on at least one aspect of the war. From the fiercest war foes to the most steadfast Bush supporters, they are looking at Iraq's surging oil income and saying Baghdad should start picking up the tab, particularly for rebuilding hospitals, roads, power lines and the rest of the shattered country. "I think the American people are growing weary not only of the war, but they are looking at why Baghdad can't pay more of these costs. And the answer is they...

AMMAN, Jordan — Crude oil exports from Iraq's key southern Basra terminal have increased to 1.44 million barrels a day, nearly double the 768,000 barrels produced over the last two days, a shipping agent said Wednesday. "The loading rate has increased to 60,000 barrels an hour since Tuesday afternoon," or 1.44 million barrels a day, the agent said by telephone from the terminal, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

MOSCOW, March 26 (Reuters) - Russian firm Stroytransgaz has signed a protocol with Iraq to reactivate an oil export pipeline to Syria's Mediterranean terminal of Banias, the Russian firm said on Wednesday. It said it had signed the deal in Amman, Jordan, with Iraqi North Oil Company. "The participation of Stroytransgaz in this project will represent a substantial contribution by Russian firms to reconstruction and modernisation of Iraqi economic infrastructure," the statement said. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote a letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki calling on him to support Russian investments in the country. The letter...

Moscow has stepped up its attempts to become Washington's main rival in the Middle East with an audacious attempt to win a large stake of Iraq's oil wealth. Glossing over his opposition to the American-led invasion and a prolonged period of poor relations with Baghdad, President Vladimir Putin wrote to Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, this week setting out the case for Russian investment in the energy sector. The move comes at a time when Russia is aggressively expanding its influence in the Middle East, an offensive that some say echoes the Cold War competition for patronage once waged...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces were drawn deeper into Iraq's four day-old crackdown on Shi'ite militants on Friday, launching air strikes in Basra for the first time and battling militants in Baghdad. The fighting has exposed a rift within the majority Shi'ite community and put pressure on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose forces have failed to drive fighters loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr off the streets of Iraq's second-largest city. Authorities shut down Baghdad with a strict curfew, but that did not halt rocket attacks and clashes in the capital. Defence Minister Abdel Qader Jassim acknowledged that Iraqi security forces...

HAQLANIYAH, Iraq, March 27, 2008 – Marines and sailors delivered the first batch of personal protection equipment, valued at $118,000, to employees of the Northern Petroleum Co. at the K3 Oil refinery here March 25. Navy Lt. j.g. Eric Palmer, team leader of Civil Affairs Group Detachment 1, Team 6 of the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based Regimental Combat Team 5, delivers the first batch of personal protection gear to Iraqi employees of the Northern Petroleum Oil Company at the K3 Oil Refinery in Haqlaniyah, Iraq, March 25, 2008. Included were hearing protection, facial shields, goggles, gloves, coveralls, and steel-toed boots....

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil jumped above $107 on Thursday after saboteurs blew up one of Iraq's two main export pipelines. The attack on the pipeline in southern Iraq came on the third day of an Iraqi military operation against fighters loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the oil port of Basra. "This morning saboteurs blew up the pipeline transporting crude from Zubair 1 by placing bombs beneath it. The pipeline was severely damaged," a Southern Oil Company official told Reuters. "We will lose about a third of crude exported through Basra," he said, adding that it would take three...

The continuing military operations in the oil hub Basra have slowed down Iraq's crude-oil production and exports from southern oil fields, an Iraqi official with the South Oil Company and a shipping agent said Thursday. Meanwhile, a bomb Thursday struck the key Zubair-1 crude pipeline -- the largest pipeline to the Basra export terminal -- and will likely affect exports "heavily," the South Oil Company official said.

BAGHDAD: A bomb struck an oil pipeline Thursday in Iraq's southern city of Basra where Iraqi security forces have been clashing with Shiite militia fighters, an oil official said, the second such attack this week

BAGHDAD, March 26 (Reuters) - Oil production and exports from Iraq's southern oilfields could be disrupted in three days if workers cannot reach their offices due to fighting in Basra, a Southern Oil Company official said on Wednesday. "If the military operations continue for three more days, the oil workers will not be able to continue their work and this is going to definitely affect oil production and exports," said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's cabinet has given the green light to the Oil Ministry to sign agreements with international oil companies to help increase the nation's crude output, a ministry official said Wednesday. The two-year deals, known as technical support agreements, or TSAs, are designed to develop five producing fields to add 500,000 barrels per day to the country's 2.4 million barrels per day output. Last December, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC, ExxonMobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. submitted technical and financial proposals for the five fields and received counterproposals from the Iraqi side. In January, representatives from the companies and...

An initial investment of $40 billion (Dh146.8bn) is needed to put Iraq’s oil industry back on track, according to a new book. The country is an oil superpower with the world’s third largest proven reserves – and development programmes could add billions of barrels within a few years, catapulting it to the number one position. But three major wars and more than 12 years of crippling UN sanctions have reduced the Arab state to a minor crude exporter despite the fact it is one of a handful of countries with super-giant oilfields. Meanwhile, other countries with much smaller hydrocarbon resources...

BAGHDAD - Iraq's crude oil exports in January inched up to 59.6 million barrels, a six per cent increase from the previous month, the Oil Ministry said Tuesday. Iraq's average production was 2.4 million barrels per day in January while exports stood at an average of 1.92 million barrels per day, the ministry's figures showed. December's exports averaged 1.81 million barrels per day. But there was still an enormous difference in output between the southern port of Basra, which exported an average of 1.54 million barrels daily, and the northern city of Kirkuk, which exported nearly 380,000 barrels per day....

(UPI) -- Iraq has stopped exports via its northern pipeline because storage tanks in Turkey have been filled. Abdul Razzak Mohammed al-Jiboori of the North Oil Co., a state-run firm, said levels will be drawn down over the next few days after expected sales. Iraq Directory reports the storage reservoirs in Ceyhan, Turkey, reached 6.8 million barrels of oil produced from the Kirkuk oil fields. This is a major feat considering the pipeline from Kirkuk to Ceyhan was mostly offline since 2003 because of attacks from insurgents. In August the Iraq Oil Ministry said repairs and revamped security of the...

Laden: US seeks to exploit Iraq oil (Agencies) Updated: 2007-12-30 08:41 Dubai - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused Washington of plotting to take control of Iraq's oil and urged Iraqis to reject efforts to rebuild a US-backed national unity government. The militant leader also vowed in an audio recording posted on the Internet on Saturday to expand jihad to liberate all Palestinian land and said his group will never recognize Israel. "America seeks, alongside its agents in the region, to create an allied government ... that would accept in advance the presence of major US bases in Iraq...

KIRKUK, Iraq — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced visit Tuesday to the city that Iraq's Kurds call their Jerusalem, an oil-rich territory claimed by many where the United States says it sees new signs of cooperation and progress. Rice was seeing members of a civilian-military reconstruction unit based in Kirkuk and meeting provincial politicians of all stripes. She was seeing Iraq's central leadership later in Baghdad. Such reconstruction units were expanded along with the escalation of U.S. forces President Bush ordered this year. Sunni Arabs ended a yearlong political boycott earlier this month in Kirkuk — the...

Iraqi oil production is above the levels seen before the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The IEA said Iraqi crude production is now running at 2.3 million barrels per day, compared with 1.9 million barrels at the start of this year