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Rumaila bounces back after bombing
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Flares burn at the Rumaila oil field. (REUTERS/Atef Hassan)
By Ben V
an Heuvelen and Staff of Iraq Oil Report
Published December 15, 2011
BAGHDAD - Iraq's largest oil field has recovered from a Tuesday pipeline bombing that took half of its production off line.
Production at the Rumaila oil field was cut by 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) after Tuesday's attack forced the shut-down of pipelines running from South Rumaila to the Zubair 1 storage facility, according to Salah Abdul Karim Mohammed, the general manager of the Rumaila Operating Organization (ROO).
By noon on Thursday, production was "back to normal," Mohammed said. Over the past month, Rumaila has produced between 1.25 and 1.37 million bpd, according to a senior Oil Ministry official.
Rumaila is operated by BP, in partnership with the China National Petroleum Corp. and Iraq's state-run South Oil Company (SOC). Over the course of the contract, the consortium aims to boost production at the field to 2.85 million bpd.
The attack happened Tuesday at 9:35 p.m., when three bombs detonated along a series of six six-inch pipelines, about 35 kilometers west of Basra city. Three of the pipelines were damaged, and all had to be shut down.
A fire burned Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, causing additional damage. Mohammed estimated that 30 to 40 meters of pipeline needed to be replaced.
Ten technical teams from SOC arrived on the scene about 9 a.m. Wednesday, bringing equipment and spare parts. Welders were at work on the pipelines that evening and into the night, according to Mohammed.
An SOC official confirmed that the pipeline repairs were completed by Thursday morning.
After the attack, several officials from the Oil Ministry and the SOC expressed optimism that exports would not be affected. With more than 4 million barrels of crude in storage, Iraq could compensate for a temporary production drop from Rumaila, they said.
The location of the attack was just 300 meters from a similar bombing on Oct. 7 that also took much of Rumaila's production off line.
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