The announcement was made by the head of the company’s commercial section, Captain Fadhil Abd Ali.

“We have started negotiating with five companies to start a joint venture to supply ships coming to Iraq’s oil terminals with fuel oil. We are planning to sell 200,000 tons of fuel oil a month,” said Fadhil.

“Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organisation, SOMO, whose headquarters are in Baghdad, [have] promised to provide fuel oil produced by Iraq’s three main refineries in Baiji, Daura and Shuaiba,” he added.

IOTC is looking for terms which would see its partner provide three vessels, each with 1,500 to 2,500 metric tons of loading capacity, and a further two more vessels which will be used to store fuel oil.

These two vessels will each have a capacity of 10,000 tons. The partner will also be responsible for repairing the two berths in the Persian Gulfs where the vessels will be moored.

According to Fadhil, “Serious negotiations are being carried out with the Arab Maritime Petroleum Transport Company.” He also confirmed negotiations were on-going with “other companies from the Netherlands, Japan and Pakistan” but he did not reveal their names.