By Haydar Hadi,

Baghdad : Iraq is planning to build a new pipeline to export oil from its Kirkuk province to Turkey’s port of Ceyhan in the southern Adana province, an Iraqi Oil Ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

In a statement, Asim Cihad said, “Jabbar Ali Hussein Al-Luiebi, the minister of oil, has ordered the related authorities to start initial preparations for construction of a new pipeline from the city of Baiji [in the Saladin province, near Kirkuk] reaching to the Fish-Khabur border crossing with Turkey.”

Cihad said the new pipeline would serve to replace an old pipeline which suffered severe damaged in terror attacks.

Companies interested in building the new pipeline will be invited to the ministry, he said.

Unidentified attackers on several occasions blew up the strategic Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline in Iraq’s northern Kirkuk province.

Iraq is the second-largest crude oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after Saudi Arabia, and holds the world’s fifth-largest proven crude oil reserves after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Iran, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

—AA