Iraq on Thursday tendered to sell its first crude since the fall of Saddam Hussein and said it aimed to clinch term supply deals by the end of June.

Returning to the international market nearly three months after the US invasion, Iraq's state oil marketing organisation SOMO called for bids for 10 million barrels of crude held in storage at export terminals. The oil will be loaded between June 17-30.

After the open tender is awarded next week, direct contracts with oil companies should follow by the end of this month, Iraq's chief oil marketer, Mohammed al-Jibouri, told

Reuters.

"The tender is just a one-off. We want to export our oil on term contracts," Jibouri, head of SOMO, said.

"Hopefully we will start signing contracts after the barrels are emptied out of storage."

SOMO called for bids by noon EDT on June 10 for eight million barrels of Kirkuk crude stored at Ceyhan in Turkey and two million barrels of Basrah Light at the Iraqi Gulf port Mina al-Bakr.

It said bids preferably should come from refiners, cutting out middlemen who dominated Saddam's sales roster under the now-defunct United Nations oil-for-food program that operated under sanctions.

Under oil-for-food, Iraq exported over two million barrels per day (bpd), accounting for some four percent of globally traded oil.

Having put back its targets for resuming exports several times, Iraqi oil authorities are now aiming to quickly reach exports of a million barrels per day.

But sustained looting and lack of security at oilfields in the south of the country threatens that timetable.

SOMO's tender switches payment for Iraqi crude back to US dollars, despite the steep decline in the value of the dollar versus the euro since Saddam ordered payments be made in euros in late 2000.