Watchdog Agency Faults Lack of Iraqi Oil Metering

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040330/wl_nm/iraq_oil_proceeds_dc&cid=574&ncid=1480

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.S.-led authority in Baghdad is failing to meter Iraq (news - web sites)'s oil production, leaving a door open to smuggling, an international watchdog agency said on Tuesday, calling for urgent steps to address the problem.



The International Advisory and Monitoring Board, set up by the U.N. Security Council to watch over Iraq's oil production in the post-war era, said the Coalition Provisional Authority informed it two weeks ago that crude oil was unmetered.


Metering production, referred to by the monitoring board as a standard oil industry practice, allows the producer to verify that no oil is diverted between from time it is taken out of the ground to the time it is marketed.


The absence of metering "represents an internal control weakness which needs to be addressed urgently," the board said in a notice posted on its Web site (http://www.iamb.info).

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[lastknowngood]

1. without metering they will never be able to prove how much

oil the shrub and his minions stole. Ain't it grand?

[Fovea]

2. Its like Teapot dome in reverse.

Is * using the filling of the strategic reserves as a smokescreen for stolen Iraqi oil?