KIRKUK, Iraq, Aug 20 (AFP) - A local pipeline linking the main northern Iraqi oilfields of Kirkuk to the Baiji refinery was damaged when a makeshift bomb exploded early Friday, hampering oil distribution, said a security source.
The bomb detonated at 8:30 am (0230 GMT), 30 kilometres (19 miles) west of Kirkuk, said fire fighter Ali Abdullah attached to the state-run North Oil Company, giving no further details.
In the main southern city of Basra, the British military said the number of security guards around key oil infrastructure had been stepped up after the Mehdi Army torched the offices and warehosues of the South Oil Company.
"We will not leave a single coalition base untouched and we will attack oil wells if attacks on Najaf continue," Sheikh Ahmed Fartusi, who called himself the Basra commander of the Mehdi Army, told AFP on Thursday.
Last Saturday, an official from the North Oil Company said oil pumping to the Turkish port of Ceyhan had resumed at a rate of 600,000 to 800,000 barrels per day -- levels not seen for the past year.
Security has been intense along the length of the northern export artery in a bid to prevent any new disruption to the vital foreign-exchange earner.
Oil output in the south has been cut by half because of Mehdi Army activity.