Iraq has suspended crude oil exports from its newly built sea-terminal in the south on technical faults after loading one vessel earlier this month, a senior Iraqi oil official said Wednesday.

"We have suspended loading operations from the terminal since March 13 because of some technical faults that need to be fixed," the official from the country's largest oil entity, the South Oil Co., told Dow Jones Newswires.

Oil began loading from the new single-point mooring, or SPM, buoy in the Gulf--the first of five each with 900,000 barrels a day loading capacity--March 8. So far the facility has exported one cargo, a 2 million-barrel shipment which sailed March 13.

The official said that repair work is continuing and it is expected to conclude in two days when the SPM would resume loading.

The new SPM, built by a subsidiary of Australia 's Leighton Holding Ltd. (LEI.AU), opened last month but bad weather and some technical faults delayed the start of loading.

Iraq has had to reduce its production from southern oil fields in recent months because it didn't have enough export capacity, but the new SPM terminal means it will be able to increase exports from its southern oil fields to some 2.2 million barrels a day this year, bringing its total export capacity in the south to 2.7 million barrels a day from current 1.8 million barrels a day, officials said.
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