LONDON/BASRA: Iraq has boosted oil output from its southern oil fields after repairing a leaking pipeline, two oil officials said yesterday, although planned work was continuing to keep a lid on exports from Opec’s No. 2 producer.
Oil was flowing to the southern terminals at 2.33mbpd yesterday, shipping data showed, up from 1.92m bpd on Sunday.
Iraq’s oil revival, which got under way in 2010, has slowed this year due to infrastructure and security problems, keeping production below targets and sometimes even below last year’s levels of three million barrels per day.
The leaking pipeline had prompted output at the Rumaila oilfield to be cut back, temporarily adding to the impact of planned work at the Basrah Oil Terminal which has reduced the export capacity in the south — Iraq’s main outlet.
Two oil officials said yesterday Iraq had restored normal output from the southern oilfields on Sunday after repairing the leak to an ageing pipeline buried three metres underground due to corrosion.
“We are planning to pump higher crude shipments for the rest of September to compensate for the reduced exports due to the pipeline leak,” a senior oil official said.
In light of the recent leak, Iraq has decided to evaluate all its key oil pipelines in the south to avoid future disruption from technical problems, an Iraqi oil ministry official said.
“We reached a decision to push ahead with building new key pipelines in the south to make sure we have plan B for any possible disruption to crude flow,” the official said.
Production from Rumaila, the workhorse of Iraq’s oil industry, had climbed to around 1.35mbpd on Sunday after the pipeline leak cut output last week to 870,000 bpd, oil officials close to Rumaila operations said.
Export capacity remains reduced as two of the terminal’s four berths are shut for planned work, which is limiting southern export capacity to around 1.7 million bpd according to trade sources.
reuters
