Oil flow from Northern Iraq to Turkey halted

ISTANBUL

A worker gestures towards pipelines at an oil refinery. Oil flow has been halted on the Kirkuk-Ceyan Oil Pipeline, Turkey’s main oil route, following three bomb attacks in the morning hours of Aug.22, according to daily Radikal. REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny

Oil flow has been halted on the Kirkuk-Ceyan Oil Pipeline, Turkey’s main oil route, following three bomb attacks in the morning hours of yesterday, according to daily Radikal.

The attacks were coordinated, according to the report, and caused severe damage to the pipeline, forcing officials to halt the oil flow.

Iraqi authorities said the attack was the biggest attack since 2003, and Turkish company BOTAŞ representatives confirmed the scale of the bomb attack to be quite large. The flow, BOTAŞ added, would be back on in a few days.

Retrieving information from the site is currently difficult, Radikal reported. BOTAŞ said two separate pipelines were present, with sizes of 40 and 46 inches, and the larger pipe was the origin of the explosion. The smaller pipe hadn’t been working for a while, the report added.

Kirkuk pipeline has come under attack 37 times in the past two months, and often underwent disruptions in the oil flow. Officials told Radikal that the daily export of oil from Iraq has dropped severely, to about 300-350,000 barrels a day.

The attack, coming only a few days after an Aug. 17 attack on the same pipeline, would cause a loss of 35 million dollars a day for the Iraqi side as the pipeline provides about 400-500 barrels daily.

The pipeline has previously been left out due to frequent sabotages, with flow being halted completely between 2005 and 2007. Around 20 percent of Iraq’s oil exports were carried out through the Kirkuk line just last year, Radikal added.