Report: Iraq to sell oil to Jordan at lower price

AMMAN, Aug. 12 (Chinese media) -- Iraq has agreed to sell

Kirkuk crude oil to Jordan at a lower price in an amendment to a previous

three-year deal, local daily Jordan Times reported on Tuesday.

Under the amendment, the discount of Kirkuk crude oil sold to Jordan will be 22 U.S. dollars per barrel instead

of previous 18 dollars, Jordanian Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources

Khaldun Qteishat was quoted as saying.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki paid a visit to

Jordan in July, during which a memorandum of understanding signed in August 2006

was extended for three years from June 12, 2008, ensuring Jordan's 10 to 30

percent of daily oil needs at a discount of 18 dollars.

The discount announcement came hours after Jordan's

King Abdullah II's Monday visit to Baghdad, during which he held talks with

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi on both

political and economic issues.

Abdullah's visit marked the first by a head of an

Arab nation since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Kirkuk, located 250 km north of Baghdad, is the

center of petroleum industry in northern Iraq. It pumps up to one million

barrels of oil a day, almost half of all Iraqi oil exports.