Insurgents set fire to a oil storage tank at a pumping station along Iraq's main export pipeline to Turkey on Monday and also blew up five oil wells west of Kirkuk, witnesses said. Reuters television pictures showed huge flames and thick black smoke pouring into the air at the pumping station about 40 km (25 miles) southwest of Mosul, in Iraq's far north. Officials said last week that the export line was pumping at about 500,000 barrels per day, but an Oil Ministry spokesman said on Monday Iraq had not been exporting oil through Turkey. "Hitting the pipeline will not affect exports because we do not export to Turkey at the moment," said Assem Jihad. "We were testing the line, but we rely on exports through the south." Jihad said saboteurs had also attacked oil wells in the Khabbaza field, about 30 km west of Iraq's major oil producing city of Kirkuk, on Saturday. They had been burning ever since and would likely take some time to douse, he said. Saboteurs also blew up a section of a pipeline transporting oil products north of Baghdad and an internal pipeline pumping oil from Kirkuk to the refining centre of Baiji. Saboteurs and insurgents have repeatedly attacked Iraq's oil infrastructure in order to disrupt efforts at reconstruction and block potential revenue from oil exports. The main export pipeline that runs from the Baiji oil refinery north past Mosul to the Turkish port of Ceyhan is a major artery in Iraq's oil infrastructure.
