Pipeline blaze won’t affect crude exports

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The fire that broke out in an oil pipeline that links the Turkish Ceyhan Port to Iraq’s northern oilfields as a result of sabotage will not disrupt Iraq’s exports via the port, an Iraqi official said on Saturday. “The act of sabotage that last night targeted the Iraqi oil pipeline between Kirkuk’s oilfields and the Turkish Ceyhan Port will not affect the level of Iraqi oil exports,” a spokesperson for the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, Aasem Jihad, told IraqiNews.com. Oil exports will continue as normal, Jihad noted, adding that oil reservoirs in the area contain large amounts of Iraqi crude that are enough for more than 10 days. Iraq exports 350,000-400,000 barrels per day (bpd) via the Turkish port. Last October, a foreign relations official in the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Abdelrahman al-Jadirji, threatened to hit Iraqi-Turkish oil pipelines. The party has claimed responsibility for similar attacks on pipelines in eastern Turkey. Kirkuk, 250 km (156 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, sits on the ruins of a 5,000-year-old settlement. Kirkuk is the centre of the northern Iraqi petroleum industry. It is a historically and ethnically mixed city populated by Assyrians, Kurds, Arabs and Iraqi Turkmen. The population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2008. SS (S) 1