Saturday, April 07, 2007
Oil minister urges Kirkuk local council to protect oil facilities as pipeline attacked
Oil, Security
(VOI) – Iraqi Minister of Oil Dr. Hussein al-Shahrestani urged the Kirkuk local council to protect the ministry's oil facilities and pipelines from acts of sabotage. "The Kirkuk oil installations' production capacity is enough to meet the needs of the northern refineries in Kirkuk and Baiji," Shahrestani told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). The minister explained that stopping exports from the Turkish Ceyhan port outlet due to ceaseless vandalism of oil pipelines has caused production levels to decrease and consequently cost Iraq millions of dollars in daily losses.
Earlier on Friday morning, a security source in the Iraqi police said unidentified men bombed an Iraqi oil pipeline in southern Kirkuk, setting the oil installation ablaze. The pipeline, which carries oil from Kirkuk to the Baiji refineries and is near the main road linking Kirkuk to the district of al-Huweija, was blown up with an explosive charge, causing a thick blaze firefighters are trying to control," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
The oil industry in the northern fields are coming under constant attacks, which upsets the regularity of Iraqi oil exports. The northern oil fields are considered Iraq's only outlet to sell crude oil exports via the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Oil-rich fields in Kirkuk, 250 km northeast of Baghdad, have stopped regular exporting as a result of attacks that caused harms estimated at billions of dollars.
Labels: attack, Baiji refineries, Hussain al-Shahrastani, Kirkuk, oil pipeline
