A small pipeline has been sabotaged in the latest in a rash of voilent incidents sweeping the country, according to a Reuters report.
An official at state-run North Oil Company told the Reuters news service that a bomb hit a minor pipeline, which carries about 700 barrels per day of crude from northern fields to a gathering facility in Ain Zala, northwest of Mosul.
“It happened yesterday (Saturday)… maintenance is ongoing to fix the pipeline,” said the official, who asked not to be named by Reuters. The pipe is not used for oil exports, he said.
A police source in Mosul told Reuters the explosion occurred early on Sunday and was caused by a bomb placed under an oil pipeline 120 kilometres northwest of Mosul.
Overall violence in Iraq has fallen sharply in the past two years, and the Shi’ite south, where most current oil production takes place, is relatively peaceful. But attacks still occur, and the last month has seen numerous attacks, from an attempted assasination of a visiting Iranian delegation to suicide bombings aimed at police and government workers.
The Iraq-Turkey pipeline in the north, which carries around a quarter of Iraq’s oil exports, is regularly hit by sabotage, usually blamed on al Qaeda and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party.
A bomb attack on an oil storage depot set a storage tank ablaze last month in a rare assault in the usually more stable southern oilfields.
Iraqi officials say local armed forces are ready to contain any internal threat when the last US troops in the country leave in a planned withdrawal at year-end.
