LONDON — Iraq plans to boost its military presence around oil
fields in the north.
Officials said the Iraq Army would increase deployment around the oil
fields at Kirkuk. They said the Oil Ministry hopes the bolstered military
presence would lead to a significant decline in insurgency strikes.
"We already have a military presence there and we're going to reinforce
it," Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani said during a Sept. 11 briefing
at OPEC headquarters in Vienna.
In 2006, the Oil Ministry renewed oil production and exports from the
Kirkuk fields to Turkey, Middle East Newsline reported. The northern fields produced an estimated 8.5
million barrels of crude in July.
