 Sixteen people have died after an Iraqi oil pipeline was attacked close to the city of Mosul.
Militants in pick-up trucks opened fire on soldiers who were guarding the pipeline in the northern province of Nineveh. Security forces said that an Army issue Humvee vehicle was also taken during the attack.
The attack will be seen as another attempt to undermine Iraq’s ambitious oil production targets for 2014 and to de-stabilise the government. Iraq has set itself ambitious targets for oil production in the coming years aiming to increase production levels to 4.7 million bpd by 2015 – up from 2.45 million bpd in January 2014. Iraq has also claimed that it would be able to deliver a massive 9 million bpd by 2020.
The pipeline in question supplies oil from Iraq’s Kirkuk oil fields to neighbouring Turkey and on to mainland Europe. An attack on this pipeline is an attack on the lifeblood of the Iraqi economy.
“Dozens of gunmen in pick-up trucks launched orchestrated attacks against army commando soldiers protecting an oil pipeline. The soldiers were taken by surprise and this is why we have such a high death toll,” a security source told Reuters.
The OPEC member’s ambitious plans to ramp up its oil output have been held back by poor maintenance, technical problems and now deteriorating security.
