BAGHDAD - Repair teams started work on major oil pipelines connecting Iraq's largest refinery to Baghdad on Sunday, in a bid to help meet a domestic supply shortfall, a British official overseeing the project said.
"This group of pipelines connects north and south Iraq and will help distribute crude oil to refineries and oil products such as kerosene and diesel to people," Brigadier Carew Wilkes, energy operations director for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said.
"Repair teams started work on this group of pipelines in Baghdad and Baiji today," he added, without giving a time frame for when the work would be complete.
Once finished, some pipelines would also distribute natural gas from northern gas fields to power stations, he said.
The Baiji refinery, 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, supplies the domestic market with gasoline, diesel, cooking gas, kerosene and other crude oil and gas derivatives.
Despite having the world's third-largest reserves of crude oil, Iraq suffers chronic fuel shortages and has been plagued by power cuts that have left some regions with less than one hour of electricity a day.
The electricity and oil networks have been hard hit by decades of war and international sanctions imposed on former President Saddam Hussein.
Baiji has a capacity of more than 200,000 bpd, Iraqi officials say, but it is frequently shut down by fires, sabotage by militants and lengthy power outages.
Wilkes said production of refined products had increased 14 percent since December last year, but he gave no figures.
Wilkes said recent repairs to oil products and liquid petroleum gas lines around Baghdad and improved security had greatly boosted the amount of fuel available to the city.
He added that work was ongoing to boost the production of crude oil in Iraq's northern Kirkuk oilfields, which he said had already set new post-invasion records this year of close to 650,000 bpd, though he said production was still being limited by the insufficient capacity of export pipelines and terminals.
Iraq's oil ministry says average daily crude exports from Kirkuk, which go through Turkey, were 475,000 bpd in May. It expects to boost that average to 600,000 in June, thanks to better security since last summer.
"This group of pipelines connects north and south Iraq and will help distribute crude oil to refineries and oil products such as kerosene and diesel to people," Brigadier Carew Wilkes, energy operations director for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said.
"Repair teams started work on this group of pipelines in Baghdad and Baiji today," he added, without giving a time frame for when the work would be complete.
Once finished, some pipelines would also distribute natural gas from northern gas fields to power stations, he said.
The Baiji refinery, 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, supplies the domestic market with gasoline, diesel, cooking gas, kerosene and other crude oil and gas derivatives.
Despite having the world's third-largest reserves of crude oil, Iraq suffers chronic fuel shortages and has been plagued by power cuts that have left some regions with less than one hour of electricity a day.
The electricity and oil networks have been hard hit by decades of war and international sanctions imposed on former President Saddam Hussein.
Baiji has a capacity of more than 200,000 bpd, Iraqi officials say, but it is frequently shut down by fires, sabotage by militants and lengthy power outages.
Wilkes said production of refined products had increased 14 percent since December last year, but he gave no figures.
Wilkes said recent repairs to oil products and liquid petroleum gas lines around Baghdad and improved security had greatly boosted the amount of fuel available to the city.
He added that work was ongoing to boost the production of crude oil in Iraq's northern Kirkuk oilfields, which he said had already set new post-invasion records this year of close to 650,000 bpd, though he said production was still being limited by the insufficient capacity of export pipelines and terminals.
Iraq's oil ministry says average daily crude exports from Kirkuk, which go through Turkey, were 475,000 bpd in May. It expects to boost that average to 600,000 in June, thanks to better security since last summer.
