Suicide boat bombings targeting Iraq’s key oil industry in the Gulf forced the closure of two major terminals in the Gulf for several hours, but the facilities resumed work loading tankers today, Iraq’s top oil marketing official said.

Insurgents detonated explosives on an oil well in northern Iraq sparking a fire that raged for 24 hours before being extinguished, a senior Iraqi security official said today.

British oil giants BP and Shell are poised to start selling oil from Iraq after they won a tendering process.

Iraq has re-entered the world oil market with its first shipment of crude since the war, but sabotage and looting along its largest pipeline delayed the flow of freshly pumped oil – the key to the reconstruction of an economy devastated by sanctions and war.