Iraq oil exports reduced by half

IRAQ’S oil exports were still running at half their normal rate yesterday as instability due to an anti-US uprising prevented the reopening of a main pipeline feeding the country’s terminals in the Gulf.

For nearly a week, the unrest has kept Iraq from hitting its August export goal of 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd).

An Iraqi oil official said it was impossible to say how long the threat from the rising would cripple oil sales, the country’s key revenue earner.

“The situation is very fluid and fragile,” the official told Reuters. “What is correct now is that we are loading about 900,000 barrels of Basra Light. How long we can sustain that - only God knows.”

Exports from Iraq’s offshore terminals, which account for all its oil sales, have run at half normallevels of 1.8 million bpd since last Monday, when saboteurs attacked a 48-inch pipeline that links southern oilfields to two offshore terminals. A 42-inch pipeline remains in operation.

The larger pipeline has been repaired, but authorities shut it Saturday after receiving intelligence that the Mehdi Army militia loyal to Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr might target it.

An official from the South Oil Co confirmed that the pipeline was still shut.

The Mehdi Army has vowed to attack Iraq’s oilinfrastructure in response to a US offensive against the 30-year-old cleric and his followers, which is drawing closer to the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf.

US crude oil futures hit $46.65 a barrel Friday, the latest peak in a series of record highs, underpinned by worries about sabotage in Iraq and fresh evidence of strong Chinese demand. Analysts see US oil heading for $50.

One tanker, the Lucky Sailor, was loading some 888,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Basra Light crude from platform number four of the Basra Oil Terminal (BOT), a shipping agent said.

Two ships were waiting to load at BOT and two tankers were ready to lift barrels from the neighbouring Khor al-Amaya port.

Iraq’s northern export route - linking the giant Kirkuk oilfield with the Turkish port of Ceyhan - has been shut for several months after a spate of sabotage attacks.