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Exports resume from Iraq's northern oil fields
AFP
KIRKUK, Iraq
Petroleumworld.com 06 14 06The pumping of crude oil from Iraq's northern oil fields to Turkey's Ceyhan terminal on the Mediterranean Sea has resumed after a four-month interruption, an oil company official said Tuesday.
Persistent sabotage of the pipelines shut down oil exports from the country's northern fields, centered around Kirkuk, for the past four months, the Northern Oil Company official said.
"The amount pumped in the last three days has reached 600,000 barrels," he said, adding that the actual production of the fields varies between 150,000 and 250,000 barrels per day.
"We now have more than 2.5 million barrels in the reservoirs of Ceyhan ready to export," added the official.
He attributed the renewed ability to export oil to security provided by 5,000 soldiers deployed to protect the pipelines in the region where they are regularly attacked.
Most of Iraq's oil production, some two million barrels a day, comes from the south, although international experts agree that the northern fields are under-developed.
AFP 13 1755 GMT 06 06
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