Iraq has resumed pumping of Kirkuk crude oil via the northern export pipeline to Turkey after an explosion to a part of the line inside the Turkish territory believed to have been carried out by a Kurdish rebel, an Iraqi oil ministry spokesman said.
"The pumping resumed via the other pipeline that carries oil from northern oil fields to (the Turkish port of) Ceyhan," Assem Jihad told Dow Jones Newswires. It is a twin pipeline and one of them was damaged by the explosion Friday, he said.
"We are pumping around 350,000 barrels a day," he said.
Iraq decided to close the pipeline and halted the flow from Kirkuk oil fields to Ceyhan immediately after one of the twin pipelines was sabotaged in the Turkish province of Mardin near the Iraqi border last Friday.
Rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, who are active in that area, are believed to be behind the attack.