Iraq is seeking to reopen its crude oil export pipeline through Saudi Arabia, shut in 1990, state newspaper Assababah reported citing an unidentified Iraqi official.

"The Iraqi oil ministry started taking steps to revive the Iraq-Saudi Arabia export pipeline, as part of a plan to diversify its export outlets," said the Baghdad-based daily.

An Iraqi oil ministry spokesman declined to comment on the report.

Saudi Arabia shut the pipeline in 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The pipeline used to carry Iraqi crude to the Saudi terminal of Yanbu on the Red Sea.

The pipeline was built in the 1980s, during the Iraq-Iran war, to diversify Iraq's exports routes when the two countries were attacking each other's tankers in the Gulf.-Reuters