UN approves Iraq's pricing formula for oil exports

The United Nations has approved Iraq's pricing formula for oil exports, thus removing the last legal hurdle for Baghdad to start trading under the oil-for-food plan.

Iraq is allowed to sell two billion dollars worth of oil every six months to buy food and humanitarian supplies.

The Iraqi Oil Minister, Aamer Mouhammed Rashid, said Iraq was able to pump more than eight-hundred-thousand barrels per day.

Iraq had already started pumping oil to a terminal in southern Turkey, but sales are not expected to start until next week.

The BBC Economics correspondent says Iraqi oil exports come at a time when prices have fallen by twenty-five percent.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service