Basra, Iraq — Oil exports from southern Iraq have come to a complete halt because of attacks on pipelines and are not likely to resume for at least a week, a senior Iraqi oil official said Monday.
Oil flows out of the southern pipelines — which account for 90 per cent of Iraq's exports — ceased late Sunday, an official from South Oil Co. said on condition of anonymity.
“Oil exports from the port of Basra have completely stopped since last night,” said the official. He added that exports were not likely to resume for at least one week.
A stop 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 who is chief editor of the Cyprus-based Middle East Economic Survey.
Insurgents have launched repeated attacks on Iraq's oil infrastructure in a bid to undermine the interim government and reconstruction efforts.
The strikes against five pipelines linked to the southern Rumeila oil fields immediately shut down the Zubayr 1 pumping station, forcing officials to use reserves from storage tanks to keep exports flowing for several hours. The reserves ran out late Sunday.
The South Oil Co. official said that before Sunday's attack, Iraq's exports from the south were about 600,000 barrels a day — already a third less than 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, he said.
On Saturday, insurgents blew up another pipeline in the West Qurna oilfields, about 90 miles north of Basra.
Saboteurs last brought southern oil exports to a halt in June.
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