abce certificate
New Articles
Friday, 05 December, 2008, 17:10 GMT | more >>

Iraq’s southern oil flow ‘fully restored’



By Upstream staff 

Iraq has fully restored 100,000 barrels per day of oil output from three fields that were shut down after a bomb attack on a pipeline in late March, Iraqi oil officials said.

The attack on a pipeline on 27 March was the first to affect southern oil exports since 2004. The attack shut the Bazargan, Majoon and Bin Umar oilfields, which had been pumping around 100,000 bpd.

The Bin Umar field restarted about a week ago, one official said. The Majoon and Bazargan fields had resumed pumping earlier.

"Everything is flowing fine now," another official said, Reuters reported.

Iraqi engineers connected a pipeline by-pass to allow output from the fields to restart despite extensive damage to a branch of the line from Bazargan.

Iraq used oil storage at both the fields and its main southern oil Basra terminal to minimise the impact on shipments.

Iraq's southern oil exports flowed at around 1.68 million bpd yesterday, up from around 1.44 million bpd on Saturday, a shipping source said.

Yesterday's flow was at the top end of the typical pumping range from Basra of 1.2 million bpd to 1.7 million bpd.


Monday, 14 April, 2008, 00:40 GMT  | last updated: Monday, 14 April, 2008, 00:40 GMT

e-mail this article to a colleague


to email:  from:
comments: