BAGHDAD: A pair of bombs struck two oil pipelines in southern Iraq, causing a temporary cut in production at the country's largest oil field, officials said Saturday.
The blasts took place late Friday at the Rumaila field, sparking a fire that took firefighters a few hours to extinguish, said the deputy head of the Basra provincial council, Ahmed al-Sulaiti. No one was hurt.
Such attacks are rare in Iraq's oil-rich south where international oil companies have begun flooding in to help develop the country's vast oil reserves. Basra is Iraq's second-largest province and home to about 70 per cent of the country's proven oil reserves of 143.1 billion barrels.
The attack forced officials to cut production by about 600,000 barrels from around 1.25 million barrels per day, said Dhia Jaafar, the director-general of the state-run South Oil Co.
He said the country's oil exports were not affected and production should be restored to normal levels in two days.
''It is a terrorist attack and sabotage act,'' he said. ''It is a clear security breach and that we should all cooperate to catch and punish those behind it so that it will not be repeated.''
The Rumaila field is Iraq's largest with 17.8 billion barrels. It is being developed by Britain's BP and China's CNPC.
Iraq's daily production stands at about 2.9 million barrels per day and oil exports average around 2.1 million barrels per day. Oil revenues make up about 95 per cent of the state budget.
Iraq has awarded 15 oil and gas deals since 2008 to international energy companies in the first major investment in the country's energy industry in more than three decades.
Baghdad aims to raise daily output to 12 million barrels by 2017, a level that would put it nearly on par with Saudi Arabia's current production capacity. But many analysts say the target is unrealistic, given the decaying infrastructure due to many wars and more than a decade-long international embargo.
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