May 18, 2004
APF

Photo: A worker adjusts the flow of an oil pipe at a refinery in Iraq. A sabotaged pipeline in southern Iraq has been repaired and exports are to resume at pre-May 9 levels, an official at the oil terminal said.(AFP/File/Karim Sahib)

BASRA, Iraq (AFP) - A sabotaged pipeline in southern Iraq has been repaired and exports are to resume at pre-May 9 levels, an official at the oil terminal said.

"Pumping through the pipeline that has just been repaired started at 9 a.m. (0500 GMT) and we expect the crude to reach the terminal around noon (0800 GMT)," Moayad Hashem, the official at the offshore terminal, told AFP Tuesday.

He said exports should reach the same level as before the pipeline was sabotaged near Basra on May 9.

The sabotage halved tanker loadings of about 1.7 million barrels per day.

In Baghdad, oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said that repairs to the oil pipeline were completed Monday.

"We began experimental pumping this morning and it was successful. The crude reached the Basra terminal and if everything goes according to plan, we will quickly return to our normal export levels," he told AFP.

Last Thursday, Hashem said that Iraqi exports of crude were still lagging at one million bpd, and that it would take another two days to reach the standard rate of 1.7 or 1.8 bpd.

"We are currently pumping out (an average of) 41,500 barrels an hour," he said.

Activities at two out of four deep-water terminals had been suspended given the low flow of crude.

Two days after the sabotage attack, interim oil minister Mohammed Bahr al-Ulum complained about the difficulties of protecting the some 7,000 kilometres (4,375 miles) of pipelines that snake across oil-rich Iraq.

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