Northern Iraq Hit By Oil Pipeline Fires, Power Outages

KIRKUK, Iraq, Sept 14 (AFP) - Insurgents sabotaged a key pipeline on Tuesday, halting oil exports from northern Iraq to Turkey, while a second act of sabotage slashed power in Kirkuk and Baiji.
The attacks were the latest blows to Iraq's decrepit energy infrastructure, burdened by sabotage and a slow US-led reconstruction effort.
A vital northern fuel export artery was attacked 60 kilometres (38 miles) west of Kirkuk after dawn, following a similar strike on a smaller tributary near al-Fatwah further to the west, police Colonel Emad Abdullah Obeidi said.
An AFP correspondent in Kirkuk saw an enormous cloud of thick black smoke on the horizon.
The blast stopped all northern oil exports, said a Northern Oil Company (NOC) official on condition of anonymity.
The attack came after NOC resumed exports on September 8 to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan following a similar blast one week earlier.
The latest spate of attacks comes after Iraq signed its first post-war term contract late last month for Kirkuk crude used to be auctioned off in mass tenders from reserves at Ceyhan.
A sabotage campaign has effectively shut down exports from Kirkuk's lucrative oil fields since US forces entered Baghdad in April 2003.
Separately the US military reported a fire along a pipeline near the oil refinery town of Baiji, southwest of Kirkuk, in the early hours of Tuesday.
The pipeline blast poured crude into the Tigris river and forced Baiji's main power plant to shut down, said Sabah Shakur, director of electricity distribution for northern Iraq.
The action cut power by half in the northern oil capital of Kirkuk, Shakur told AFP, and seriously diminished power supplies in Baiji.
The plant in Baiji relies on the Tigris river water for its cooling systems and could not use the water after it was heavily contaminated by fuel, Shakur said.
The fire also burnt down power cables to Kirkuk, added Bassem Mukhlas al-Junabi, the head of the Baiji power plant.
Even before the latest setback, electricity across the country operated at barely 30 to 40 percent capacity.
The country's electricity infrastructure was pillaged by looters when Saddam Hussein fell in April 2003 and repeatedly targeted by insurgents over the last 18 months.
Iraqis have pointed to the anemic power supply as a major failing of the US presence in Iraq.