Wave of attacks halts Iraq oil exports

OIL exports from southern Iraq have been brought to a complete halt following a spate of pipeline attacks launched by insurgents trying to undermine the nation’s interim government.

Oil flows out of the southern pipelines which account for 90% of Iraq's exports ceased late Sunday and were not likely to resume for at least a week, two senior officials from South Oil Co. said on condition of anonymity.

No oil was being pumped either through Iraq's northern export lines to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, according to a Ceyhan oil official. Those lines have also been repeatedly attacked in recent months.

Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi condemned the pipeline attacks, saying they were making ordinary Iraqis suffer. "This is causing a great loss for the Iraqi people in terms of revenues, which could be used in the reconstruction of the country and to pay the people and get the economy back on track again," Allawi said in CNN interview.

A halt in southern oil exports costs Iraq about $60 million a day in lost income at current global crude prices, said Walid Khadduri, an oil expert and chief editor of the Cyprus-based Middle East Economic Survey.

Insurgents have launched repeated attacks on Iraq's oil infrastructure in an effort to undermine the interim government and reconstruction efforts. The latest strikes against five pipelines linked to the southern Rumeila oil fields immediately shut down the Zubayr 1 pumping station, forcing officials to use reserves to keep exports flowing for several hours. The reserves ran out late on Sunday, the South Oil Co. official said.

Before Sunday's attack, Iraq's exports from the south were about 600,000 barrels a day a third the normal average of 1.8 million barrels a day due to a separate string of attacks early last week. The pipelines were still ablaze Monday, the official said.

Saboteurs last brought southern oil exports to a halt in June.

In Baghdad, insurgents fired three mortar rounds into an eastern neighbourhood but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

South of Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on the motorcade of the government's top official in charge of Shiite religious affairs, Sheik Hassan Baraka al-Shami, wounding two of his bodyguards. North of the capital, a woman working as a translator for the US military was seriously wounded by unidentified gunmen.