March 24
— By Angus MacSwan
KUWAIT (Reuters) - Kuwaiti firefighters doused on Monday the
first of seven oil wells blazing in Iraq's vast southern Rumaila
field as sporadic guerrilla-style resistance by armed Iraqis
continued nearby.
"We have just finished putting out the fire and are in the
process of capping the well," a senior Kuwaiti oil official told
Reuters.
A crack team from Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) is now tackling six
other wellheads on fire at the southern end of the 50-mile-long
Rumaila oilfield near the border with Kuwait.
The team, which fights fires only during daylight hours, could
take up to four weeks to finish its task.
"The area in Iraq we are in right now is under the control of
British forces and we have seen nobody else for the past three days,
except these and U.S. troops," the Kuwaiti team head told Reuters
from the scene.
Aside from the burning wells, another 10 to 15 have been mined,
he said.
While British troops are firming their grip on the southern oil
region, a Kuwaiti oil executive said there were security problems in
the northern section of the Rumaila field.
Small groups of Iraqi troops in civilian clothes made it unsafe
for journalists to travel to the region, British Lieutenant Colonel
Rob Partridge told Reuters.
"At the moment there are groups of Iraqi forces dressed in
civilian clothes in the area," he said. "They are all over the
bloody place."
Southern fields normally account for half Iraq's oil output,
ranked as the world's seventh largest before the war.
REBUILDING IRAQ
Widespread destruction of Iraq's oil infrastructure would be bad
news for Washington, which hopes to use oil wealth to rebuild the
country after war.
Departing Iraqi troops torched more than 700 Kuwaiti oil wells in
the 1991 Gulf War, setting off conflagrations that took months to
extinguish.
"We are using our experience to make sure that Iraqi oil can be
used for the Iraqi people and also to make sure that we stop the
damage to the environment," acting Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad
al-Fahd al-Sabah said of his 50-strong team.
U.S. marines first secured crucial gas-oil separation plants at
Rumaila and a pumping station at Zubair on Friday, the U.S. military
said.
Washington has already stepped up security around the oil
wellheads to prevent Baghdad from destroying the sector.
"They won't be able to destroy the wells," U.S. military
spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Jennifer Cassidy told Reuters.
The Kuwaiti experts arrived in Iraq over the weekend with water
supplies and equipment ahead of the Texas-based Boots and Coots
International Well Control team who will help assess and control the
damage.
Success in the south has yet to be matched in the north, home to
the Kirkuk oilfield, where U.S. military action is intensifying.
Warplanes from the U.S.-led forces pounded Iraqi frontline
positions near Chamchamal in the latest sign of increased military
activity in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq.
Military officials said there is no evidence of sabotage at the
76-year old oilfield, which can pump up to 900,000 bpd and
contribute some 40 percent of Iraqi exports.
Iraqi oil exports from the Gulf have stopped, but oil was still
flowing through a pipeline to Turkey on Monday, Turkish sources
said. Pumping rates fell as storage tanks filled and trading
companies were reluctant to buy the oil.
photo credit
and caption:
Dave Benson, 21, of York guards
the Rumaila oilfield in southern Iraq March 23, 2003 while
patrolling with the British Army's 216 Air Assault Signals
Squadron. Photo by Chris
Helgren/Reuters
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