The Hindu : Oil output from Kirkuk resumes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 30, 2003

International

International

Oil output from Kirkuk resumes

KIRKUK (Iraq) april 29. Iraq's North Oil Company said on Tuesday it restarted the giant Kirkuk field last week, but would not recover pre-war output levels in the near future because of war damage, looting and a lack of workers.

Oil output resumed last Thursday at 30,000-40,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Kirkuk, and the crude is being pumped by pipeline to refineries to feed local fuel requirements, Adil Qazzaz, deputy director general of the North Oil Company, told Reuters.

Before the war, Kirkuk pumped 850,000 bpd, about 40 per cent of Iraq's total production. ``We will not reach our former production levels in the near future. We have lost lots of equipment and machinery. Some was destroyed and some was looted, and we have no transport for workers,'' Mr. Qazzaz said.

The northern restart, just a month after the U.S.-led forces began their invasion of Iraq, follows the resumption of output from the southern fields on Tuesday last week at 50,000 bpd. ``The U.S. military are trying to help. They are trying to provide security which we need. Local forces are also providing security,'' said Mr. Qazzaz. Of 6,000 workers in the region, only 500 were now working, he said. A Reuters correspondent said he saw U.S. troops guarding a gas/oil separation plant and Kurdish fighters protecting administration buildings.

Mr. Qazzaz, who has worked at the North Oil Co for 33 years, said the United States had agreed to keep Iraq's existing oil company organisation for the time being. The North Oil Co is drawing on extra oil from storage tanks to pump 100,000 bpd of crude down a pipeline to the Daura and Baiji refineries, he said.

Mr. Qazzaz declined to give an outlook for output from the north, but the U.S. military said last week it expected Kirkuk production to soar to 800,000 bpd in two to six weeks from April 21.

The U.S. military also expects output from the southern fields to reach 800,000 bpd by mid-May.

Iraqi production could be constrained by a lack of export outlets, while legal and financial obstacles are ironed out at the United Nations. — Reuters

Shift in alignment

AP reports from Riyadh: The United States has moved an air operation centre from this base to one in Qatar, officials said on Tuesday. The move is the first major step in a reorganization of American military forces in the region after the war in Iraq.

Control of military flights in and around Iraq moved on Monday from Prince Sultan to Qatar's al-Udeid air base, said Rear Adm. Dave Nichols, deputy commander of the centre. Nearly all of the 4,500 Air Force personnel and 100 U.S. planes based here will be gone by the end of the summer, he said.

The Defence Secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and officials travelling with him said the U.S. military would remain in Saudi Arabia, but with a much smaller force focused primarily on training the Saudi military.

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