- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attacks
on Iraq's oil installations are becoming better organized and more concerted,
particularly in the northern oil fields, a senior U.S. official said on
Wednesday.
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- Michael Mele, Iraq program manager for the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the restoration of Iraq's oil fields,
said the volatile security situation was the biggest obstacle to reconstruction
of the crucial industry.
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- "Sabotage obviously continues to be a concern. It
looks like it is more concerted and better organized than it has been in
the past," Mele told Reuters on the sidelines of a reconstruction
conference on Iraq.
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- Restoring Iraq's oil fields and boosting capacity are
essential to the long-term success of Iraqi reconstruction, particularly
when U.S. and other funding runs out.
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- Mele said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its contractors
were being much more cautious and low-key over where they worked in Iraq.
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- "We are not advertising or announcing what we are
working on, where improvements are being made, especially in the northern
oil fields," he said.
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- Production in those fields has been crippled by bomb
attacks on pipelines and other facilities, which the U.S.-led coalition
blames largely those loyal to toppled President Saddam Hussein and outside
groups helping them.
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- Mele declined to provide details of recent attacks on
oil pipelines and installations or the extent of the damage and how much
work had to repeated due to sabotage. This information, he said, was classified.
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- UP TO PREWAR LEVELS
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- Oil production in Iraq is up to its prewar levels of
about two million barrels per day, and Mele said about three-quarters of
that was being exported.
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- "As soon as we get tankers into port, we fill them
up and ship the oil out. In the north, it's a different story," he
said, adding that oil had to be transported via vulnerable pipelines from
the north.
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- The Corps of Engineers' main contractor in Iraq is Kellogg
Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Texas company Halliburton Co., the oil
services firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney.
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- Speaking to the conference, Halliburton executive George
Sigalos said two KBR contractors had been killed so far in Iraq, six sub-contractors
had died, four KBR staff were wounded and four sub-contractors were missing.
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- "You have to be diligent about security," he
told the conference, packed with about 400 company representatives eager
for new business in Iraq.
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- Two follow-on contracts to replace KBR's no-competition
deal issued in March are set to be announced by mid-January, although Mele
said he hoped the decision would be made this month.
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- The amount for the two deals was doubled in October to
$2 billion, following a spate of attacks on oil facilities.
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- By last week, KBR had been given $1.72 billion in business
and Mele said the Texas firm would continue its work until the follow-on
contracts were awarded. KBR has also bid for that work.
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