An oil pipeline transferring crude oil from one of Kirkuk oil wells was blown up in the early hours on Sunday, August 15th, yet the fire was controlled and the pipeline to be fixed in few days, a source in North oil company said.
An employee of North Oil company on the condition of anonymity told KirkukNow the incident took place 5 am by putting an IED under a pipeline of oil well 87 of Bay Hassan oil filed in the sub-district of Sargaran, south west of Kirkuk.
“We believe it was done by Daesh militants. The fire was controlled in an hour but it takes several days to fix the pipeline,” the anonymous source said.
The daily production capacity of the oil well is 1,500 barrels per day. Part of it is exported through Ceyhan port in Turkey and the rest by the Iraqi government to another destination.
Oil well 87 of Bay Hassan filed is one of the oldest wells in Kirkuk dug in the 1930s and it’s the first time it is targeted by the militants of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ISIS.
There are about 40 oil wells in Sargaran, divided over three oil fields, Bay Hassan, Jambur and Havana.
Early May, a policeman was killed and two were injured when IS militants blown up two oil wells of Bay Hassan near the district of Dubiz, 35 km west of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
A source in state-run North oil company, that runs the five oil fields of Kirkuk, told KirkukNow two oil wells were bombed on May 4th. The first one, oil well number 177 was controlled in a day and the second, well number 183, was controlled May 8th yet its restoration took a month
Since the ousting of Kurdish forces from Kirkuk end of 2017, the federal government has controlled Kirkuk’s five oil fields: Havana, Bai Hassan, Khabaza, Jambor and Qubai Baba.
The oil-rich city of Kirkuk, located 238 kilometers north of Baghdad, is an ethnically mixed province of 1.2 million Kurds, Sunni and Shiite Arabs, and Turkmen. It has long been at the center of disputes between Baghdad and the Erbil.
Kirkuk has exported over three million barrels in July for almost 213 million American Dollars USD compared to $217 million in June, Iraqi ministry of oil stated.
