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| Iraq |
| Oil to be pumped from north Iraq as from today |
| 2003-08-13 |
| The American army announced yesterday that it was decided to start pumping oil in the main pipeline for exporting oil from northern Iraq to Turkey today and that the operation will take days before the possibility of resuming exports. The commander of the engineers unit in the fourth contingent troops who is responsible for the infrastructure of oil sector in northern Iraq, Body Nicklson, said it is expected to start oil exports at a rate of 200,000 and 300,000 barrels a day from the northern fields and that the number will increase to 500,000 barrels a day by the end of the year. Here’s a job for those Turkish troops, guard the pipeline to Turkey. On the other hand, eye witnesses and officials said that a pipeline transporting oil from Karkouk oil fields to al-Doura refinery in Baghdad was damaged yesterday because of a fire that lasted for three hours and happened because of looting operations. Just two weeks before, the oil pipeline which extents from Karkouk fields to the refinery was exposed to fire near Beji. Pipelines are easy targets, but they are also easy to repair. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 More details: Iraq began pumping fresh crude oil Wednesday through a pipeline to Turkey's Mediterranean coast for the first time since the war, a Turkish oil official said. Iraq began pumping oil at around 4:30 p.m., said the official at Turkey's Ceyhan terminal, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``They started pumping and everything looks normal,'' the official said. ``We don't know for how long they will keep pumping, it is up to Iraqis.'' Iraq resumed oil sales in June, when tankers began shipping out crude that had been in storage at Ceyhan since the war halted exports. But deliveries of fresh supplies from Iraq's northern oil fields were held up, in part because of sabotage. Oil was expected to flow for about 10 days to Ceyhan before any ships would be sent for loading. ``First, we have to wait for the storage tanks to be filled before exports can begin,'' the official said. Ceyhan already has about 500,000 barrels of Iraqi crude in stock and has a total storage capacity of around 8 million barrels. |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-8-13 11:33:49 AM |