BAGHDAD, 15 August 2003 — Sabotage and theft of power cables could bring southern Iraq’s oil industry grinding to a halt, strangling exports crucial to rebuilding the economy, a senior Oil Ministry official said yesterday. Power shortages have already sparked violent protests in southern Iraq, and have halved the daily volume of oil exported from the region’s ramshackle oil fields and refineries.
“Our big problem is the stealing of copper from power transmission lines,” the official said. “If this problem is not resolved it could bring exports in the south to a standstill.” Tons of looted metal are smuggled out of Iraq each day, mostly copper typically used in underground power and communication cables, to be sold at lucrative scrap markets in neighboring countries, traders say.
As the lack of power frayed tempers in the searing summer heat, crowds barricaded roads with blazing tires and hurled rocks at cars in Basra at the weekend. At least two Iraqis and a Nepalese security guard were killed during the unrest.
The US-led administration for Iraq says sabotage, the theft of oil products and copper power lines, and breakdowns of decrepit equipment in power stations and refineries have all contributed to the chronic shortage of electricity and fuel.
“Since late May we have had 15 attacks on oil pipelines,” Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top US commander in Iraq, told a news conference in Baghdad.
“Some of those are clearly sabotage aimed at disrupting the production of oil, but some of them are to tap into the oil lines in order to smuggle this product out of the country
Up to 2,500 tons of oil products are being smuggled out of southern Iraq each day. “We believe that somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 tons of various sorts of fuel are smuggled out of Iraq from the south, and the volume of smuggled crude oil, diesel and gasoline is estimated to be worth somewhere around $200,000 per day,” hesaid.
“The other element that complicates our problem down there is some of the attacks on the oil pipelines. To give you a perspective, since late May we have had 15 attacks on oil pipelines,” Sanchez said. “Some of those are clearly sabotage aimed at disrupting the production of oil, but some of them are to tap into the oil lines in order to smuggle this product out of the country.”
Sanchez said that in a crackdown on oil smuggling, 79 tanker trucks and 20 barges had been impounded. Earlier this month, British forces also seized the Navstar, a tanker intercepted in the Gulf on suspicion of oil smuggling. Sanchez said the Navstar had been found to be carrying 3,500 tons of diesel, more than three times the amount originally suspected. He said another tanker, the Cindy, had also been recently impounded along with its cargo of 1,000 tons of diesel.
Earlier, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet Maritime Liaison Office (MARLO), based in Bahrain, said coalition naval forces had been ordered to crack down on the smuggling of Iraqi oil in Gulf waters.
“Coalition naval forces have intensified interception operations against ships smuggling the illegal oil, in conjunction with enforcement actions by Iraqi officials and coalition forces in Iraq,” said a MARLO statement released to merchant shipping on Wednesday.
The energy crisis in southern Iraq has set off a vicious cycle — power stations in the region need fuel to produce electricity, and refineries need electricity to produce fuel. The US-led administration for Iraq says sabotage, the theft of oil products and copper power lines, and breakdowns of decrepit equipment in power stations and refineries have all contributed to the chronic shortage of electricity and fuel.
The lack of electricity has also halved oil exports from the south, a key source of income for the war-ravaged economy. A senior Oil Ministry official told Reuters that exports from the southern oil fields had dropped to about 250,000 barrels per day.
Meanwhile, the Turkish pipeline company BOTAS announced yesterday that Northern Iraqi oilfields were pumping 20,000 barrels of oil an hour to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan one day after resuming operations.