- BAGHDAD - Saboteurs kept
up relentless attacks on Iraq's oil production system on Saturday, hitting
pipelines in the north and south that disrupted internal supply, oil
officials
said.
-
- Although the attacks did not further cut export flows,
which have reverted solely to southern terminals after the northern
pipeline
was sabotaged two days ago, they exposed more gaps in security and further
undermined the US-backed government's efforts to boost the crucial oil
industry.
-
- Flows from southern fields to the two Gulf offshore
terminals
were steady at two million barrels per day, although pipelines linking
the Nahr Umr field to the Basra refinery and storage tanks were hit, South
Oil Company officials said.
-
- Flames could be seen rising from pipelines around 10
km south of the Nahr Umr oil field near the city of Basra. The field
produces
around 5,000 barrels per day.
-
- In the north, saboteurs attacked a refined oil products
pipeline near a region where the main crude export pipeline was blown up
on Thursday, said Ahmad al-Ubaidi, a senior North Oil Company security
official.
-
- A bomb exploded underneath the products pipeline, which
runs from the oil centre of Kirkuk to the Iraq's biggest oil refinery at
Baiji.
-
- The export pipeline also passes through Baiji before
continuing north to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The pipeline was still
on fire on Saturday, although crews managed to build sand walls around
it.
-
- Northern exports were running at a postwar high of
600,000
bpd before saboteurs attacked the pipeline, which has been mostly shut
since the US-led invasion.
-
- Sabotage has risen over the past month, although the
government worked on co-opting tribes along export routes and reinstated
hundreds of former ruling Baath Party members, who were fired from the
oil ministry after the war.
-
- Exports from the south recently recovered after being
cut when several pipelines in the region were hit.
-
- Two tankers were loading at the Basra terminal, formerly
known as Mina a-Bakr, at 68,000 barrels per hour, shipping data showed.
Another tanker finished loading from the Khor al-Amaya terminal
nearby.
-
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