Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi has assumed direct control of the powerful oil ministry as crude exports ground to a halt due to sabotage attacks and logistics problems, officials said today.
Mr Chalabi, who has been improving his relations with Washington after falling out with the US administration, was appointed acting oil minister after the incumbent Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum was given leave, the officials said.
Mr Uloum said he was "intent on resigning".
Aides to Mr Chalabi confirmed that he had been appointed acting oil minister. A ministry spokesman allied to Mr Uloum said the country was facing what he called an impending oil supply crisis.
"Production in the north, centre and south is about to suffocate," he said.
Exports stopped after a sabotage attack in the north and bad weather in the south .
Loadings at the Basra terminal offshore in the Gulf has been halted since December 25th due to storms and an explosion yesterday cut pipeline flows to Turkey's Ceyhan port on the Mediterranean.
The pipeline, which has been mostly idle since the 2003 US-led invasion, only resumed operations last week.
The security situation also forced Iraq's biggest refinery at Baiji north of Baghdad to shut down, an Oil Ministry spokesman said.
Iraqi oil exports in November fell to 1.21 million barrels per day, their lowest in more than two years as the northern pipeline to Turkey stayed shut and poor weather delayed loadings in the south.