Iraq has put on hold an oil supply pre-payment deal with China’s state-owned Zhenhua Oil Co. due to the uptick in crude prices this year, the country’s oil minister told BBC News Arabic Feb. 21. Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now “There was a fear that oil prices will not rise above $40/b and we were afraid of the delay in the [fiscal] budget approval. We had a number of incentives to do this announcement for the first time in Iraq,” Ihsan Ismaael said in the interview. “But with the start of this year and the economic stability resulting from the stability in the oil price, we decided to freeze […]