Iraq Pipelines, Storage Tanks Set on
Fire
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents attacked pipelines
and an oil storage depot in three parts of Iraq, setting fires that blazed
for hours and lost millions of gallons of oil, officials and media
reported Sunday, as the country faced a critical fuel shortage.
Rebels firing
rocket-propelled grenades hit storage tanks in southern Baghdad on
Saturday, creating fires that burned about 2.6 million gallons of
gasoline, said Issam Jihad, a spokesman for the Oil Ministry.
Also Saturday, a pipeline
exploded in the al-Mashahda area 15 miles north of Baghdad, in what Jihad
called ``an act of sabotage.'' ``The explosion led to the destruction of (part
of) the pipeline and to the leakage of vast quantities of oil products,''
Jihad said. |
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He said he had no immediate
information about another reported attack on oil pipelines in northern
Iraq.
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Al-Jazeera television
reported Sunday that large fires were burning following attacks Saturday
on four pipelines in the area between Tikrit and Beji. But an AP stringer
reported seeing four fires blazing from pipelines further north, between
Beji and Mosul, about 250 miles north of Baghdad.
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Al-Jazeera quoted officials
as saying those fires were caused by saboteurs.
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The Oil Ministry introduced
rationing on Thursday to overcome shortages that have created mile-long
lines of cars at gas stations and waits up to 12 hours. At the same time
the U.S. military began to crack down on black marketeers who sell gas for
as much as $1.85 a gallon. The official price equates to 5 U.S. cents a
gallon.
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Multiple causes have
created the shortages, including sabotage and difficulties restoring crude
oil supplies from war-damaged and antiquated refineries. In addition an
estimated 250,000 newly imported cars, most secondhand, that have entered
the country since Saddam Hussein was ousted.
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Iraq has the world's
second-largest oil reserves, second only to neighboring Saudi Arabia.
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12/21/03 05:07
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