Oil pipeline targeted in N. Iraq’s Kirkuk province

By Hussein al-Amir

BAGHDAD (AA) - Part of a strategic oil pipeline was blown up by unidentified attackers in Iraq’s northern Kirkuk province on Wednesday, according to a local Kurdish Peshmerga officer.

“The attackers targeted an auxiliary pipeline linking Kirkuk’s Bay Hassan oilfields to a main storage depot from which oil is pumped to Turkey’s Ceyhan Port,” Peshmerga Captain Kameran Mahmoud told Anadolu Agency.

“The attack caused a fire and temporarily halted the flow of oil,” Mahmoud said, adding, however, that the attack did not have a major effect on oil flows to Ceyhan.

Crude oil from northern Iraq is pumped via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to Turkey’s Ceyhan Port on the eastern Mediterranean coast, from which it is exported to foreign markets.