Iraq oil exports resume at reduced rate
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-23 20:07

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Iraq resumed oil exports at half the normal rate Tuesday, a day after a power outage halted shipments most of the day, a tanker agent said, the Associated Press reported.

Pumping at Iraq's two offshore export terminals in the northern Gulf resumed in the early hours Tuesday at the rate of 32,000 barrels per hour, about half the normal rate, said Mohammed Hadi, head of Iraq operations for Norton Lilly International.

Late Monday night, Iraqi oil officials said exports resumed at about a third the normal rate, with the help of backup generators. It was unclear whether another brief outage occurred overnight.

Hadi said he was unsure whether full electric power had been restored to the terminals.

A pair of tankers — one Brazilian and one Spanish — resumed taking on Iraqi crude at 4:30 a.m. local time, while a third tanker waited at the berth to begin loading, Hadi said.

Monday's export halt was blamed on sabotage to Iraq's power grid that triggered cascading blackouts that darkened wide swaths of central and southern Iraq, including Baghdad and Basra, the two largest cities. A government spokesman said pylons had been toppled on a major electricity feeder line between Beiji and the capital.

Exports through Iraq's other main route, the northern export pipeline to Turkey, have long been halted by incessant sabotage.

Analysts said the disruption in southern Iraq's exports — a brief one by the standards of postwar Iraq — wasn't likely to affect world oil prices.

After climbing as high as $66.25 per barrel, crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled Monday at $65.45, an increase of 10 cents from Friday's close.