Fire Halts Oil Flow From Iraq to Turkey

ap ^ | 8/15/03 | D'ARCY DORAN

[Ranger]

TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) -- A raging oil fire and pipeline trouble stopped all oil flow Saturday from Iraq to Turkey, just three days after the pipeline between the two countries was reopened, the military said. A police officer once imprisoned for his opposition to Saddam Hussein was appointed the top Iraqi law enforcer, while attacks continued against U.S. forces.

U.S. soldiers were helping Iraqi oil workers contain a fire burning since Friday outside the northern town of Baiji on a section of the 600-mile pipeline from the northern city of Kirkuk to the Turkish city of Ceyhan.

"There is no oil flowing into Turkey right now," said Col. Bobby Nicholson, chief engineer for the 4th Infantry Division.

The army and Turkish oil officials will investigate what happened after the fires is put out, he said. Nicholson could not say when oil would resume flowing.

A Turkish energy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iraq stopped pumping oil on Friday afternoon because of "telecommunications problems." He dismissed the possibility of sabotage, which has plagued Iraq's pipelines for months.

Problems were detected in the lines - which cannot handle pressure change due to years of corrosion - after the pipeline reopened on Wednesday, Nicholson said. In an important postwar milestone, Turkish officials said 350,000 barrels of oil was pumped that day.

Iraq has the world's second-largest proven crude reserves, at 112 billion barrels, but its pipelines, pumping stations and oil reservoirs are dilapidated after more than a decade of neglect. Northern Iraq, site of the giant Kirkuk oil fields, accounts for 40 percent of Iraq's oil production.

The Army has identified 47 projects in northern Iraq alone worth $295 million that need to be completed before oil production can return to its prewar levels, he said.

Engineers working for the state oil company were forced to cannibalize parts and equipment and use outdated technologies to keep the crude flowing during 12 years of U.N. economic sanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War.

The Army hopes it can bring the country's northern oil output to 770,000 barrels per day by the end of the year, which is still more than 50,000 barrels short of what was being produced daily before the war, Nicholson said.

In Baghdad, Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner tasked with establishing Iraq's interior ministry, announced Saturday that a police officer once imprisoned for speaking out against Saddam would be his senior deputy at the interior ministry.

Brig. Gen. Ahmed Ibrahim had been working as head of the Iraqi police's special investigations unit. During a police raid last month, he was shot in the right leg. As well as the weapons seized, that raid also netted a high-ranking member of the Saddam Fedayeen militia.

"Gen. Ibrahim's actions reflect tremendous courage, professionalism and dedication to duty," Kerik said in a statement.

A U.S. soldier was wounded Saturday when insurgents armed with a homemade bomb and rocket-propelled grenades attacked a patrol in the town of Baqouba, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, the military said.

The soldier was evacuated to a combat support hospital in stable condition.

Soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division conducted 11 raids across north-central Iraq and detained five people, including three suspected regime loyalists and a man who allegedly had threatened to kill a U.S. soldier, MacDonald said.

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[Ranger]

All the investment in the world won't cause oil to flow when C-4 is laying around with willing users. Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, al-Qaeda, Saddam, Iran, all have a reason not to see the U.S. get oil production going in Iraq right now. Until security is improved, the chances of meaningful oil out of Iraq are about nil. Perhaps the best use of money would be to offer the 70% unemployed Iraqi's a change to guard a 1/8th section of pipeline per security employee. Its got to be a strategy that pays for itself. Until the average Iraqi's have an incentive and a job, they really don't have an interest in having the oil flow, hence it won't.

[Odyssey-x]

Here's what we do. Create a big asphalt yard with a single lane in the middle of it. Line up all the guys in Iraq who want to buy oil in their trucks in a single file line. Each one comes up and fills up his truck using a several hundred foot long hose that he replaces on a stand after using. If he leaves the area between the hose and the stand or leaves the lane with his car have a guy with a 50 mm gun blow him to bits. He can then leave and do whatever he wants with the gas as long as he can pay the price. Very terrorist resistant. If he blows up his truck you just redraw the lane a few feet from the blast crater and replace the hose. Make sure the guy can only come in if he has four people accompanying him in his truck too.