Pipeline breach in southern Iraq repaired, oil exports resume regular levels

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2004

BASRA, Iraq (AFP) — A breach in an oil pipeline in southern Iraq has been repaired, allowing petroleum exports to reach their regular level, an Iraqi oil official said.

"We are currently pumping 72,000 barrels per hour," an oil official from the southern port of Basra's offshore oil terminal told AFP by telephone. The news was confirmed by a Southern Oil Company official.

The current production levels will allow Iraq to reach its level of 1.72 million barrels per day.

The oil pipeline had been breached southeast of the Az-Zubayr oil fields causing a fresh fall in exports on Saturday.

The rupture was blamed on the country's atrophied infrastructure and not sabotage.

Exports had fallen to 40,000 barrels per hour from 84,000 barrels per hour...