Don’t you just love knowing that things are going so well in Iraq?
Meanwhile, the US Navy has warned oil tankers waiting to load at southern terminals not to wait too long at the anchorage since the more time they spend at anchor the greater the chance of being attacked by pirates or terrorists. Insurgents recently used speedboats to attack two tankers.
Until that incident, Basrah Oil Terminal (BOT) and Khor al-Amaya (KAA) had been relatively free of insurgent attacks because of the heavy protection provided by the US military. However, tanker loadings at both terminals were recently interrupted by bad weather and power outages.
Crude oil exports have fallen to an average of 1.37 million b/d since January, due to falling production, insurgent attacks, bad weather and other operational problems, in particular power outages in the southern fields at the Basra terminals.
Shamkhi Faraj, an assistant to Iraqi Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, is considering fencing off the entire northern pipeline to prevent the sabotage that has kept it mostly shut down since December.
Can anyone here say “McNamara Line”?
UPDATE: Preliminary July programs (for Iraqi tanker loadings) show 26 vessels loading at Basrah and Khor al-Amaya terminals in the south as well as Ceyhan on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast — compared to an average of 30 or so per month at Basrah alone during the first half of the year.
1:37 pm on July 8, 2005
