The fire at the key Zubair-1 crude pipeline in Iraq, the largest feed to the country's main oil export terminal in Basra, has been extinguished and may take 72 hours to fix if the security situation permits, a South Oil Company official said Thursday.
"Our firefighting teams were able to extinguish the fire on the Zubair-1 Basra terminal pipeline," the official told Dow Jones Newswires. "We need 72 hours to restart the pipeline if the security situation...can permit."
The official said a domestic pipeline that moves crude from the Halfayia oil field near the city of Amara, north of Basra, to a local refinery in Amara is also ablaze early Thursday.
"I would say 70% that the pipeline was sabotaged," the official said.
The Amara refinery is thought to process some 10,000 barrels a day of crude oil.