Eric Watkins
Middle East Correspondent
NICOSIA, Nov 3 -- Even as Iraq announced the signing of a contract with a South African security firm for the protection of its oil infrastructure, petroleum officials reported a further delay in exports from the Turkish port of Ceyhan due to sabotage along the northern pipeline system.
On Sunday, for the second time in less than a month, saboteurs hit and destroyed a section of a pipeline that carries crude oil from the northern fields at Kirkuk to the Doura refinery near Baghdad. The blast ripped through a section of the pipeline south of Baiji near Mashruh al-Therthar, southwest of the city of Samarra.
The attack was the second in that area in as many days. Another explosion ripped through a natural gas pipeline Saturday near Baiji. Installations in and around Baiji— a major oil refining and oil transit point as well as a stronghold of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein —have been targeted in acts of sabotage since the end of major combat operations in April.
Exports uncertain
A senior Iraqi oil official said Monday it is now uncertain when exports from Iraq's northern oil fields will resume, perhaps within days or in 3-4 weeks. "This sort of incident gives oil officials the impression that such attacks are not going to stop and they have to think that it may happen further north to the pipeline," one Iraqi source told OGJ.
The latest attack on the Kirkuk-Doura line south of Baiji could affect exports via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. Industry sources in Iraq told OGJ that "although the two oil pipelines are technically separate, they are linked to each other in a way that officials can use the pipeline south of Baiji to carry crude from the south to the north and vice versa."
An earlier attack on the Kirkuk-Doura line closed the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline in mid-October. An Iraqi oil official said the October explosion ripped open part of the main pipeline running from the northern oil fields to the Doura refinery and the Mussayab power plant.
The official said the October attack created a supply shortage that had to be made up by diverting oil from Iraq's southern fields. As a result, oil exports from the southern oil fields would be reduced by 80,000 b/d, the official said.
Reopening the northern export route is key to US efforts to restore Iraq's prewar oil production capacity. Iraq exported some 2.2 million b/d of oil before the war, including some 800,000 b/d pumped through the northern pipeline system to a Mediterranean export terminal in Turkey. Iraq is now exporting around 1.2 million b/d of oil, all from its export terminals on the Persian Gulf.
Iraq contracted with the South African security firm, Erinys International, to step up protection of the northern pipeline system. An Iraqi oil official said Saturday that Erinys personnel would work as watchmen over the system, but he did not elaborate on the terms of the contract. Earlier reports said Erinys (an international business-risk consultant named for a mythical avenging deity, one of the Furies) was contracted to hire 6,500 Iraqis to guard key installations, including oil wellheads, pipelines, and refineries, as well as electricity and water facilities (OGJ Online, Aug. 18, 2003).