Iraq was forced to temporarily curtail crude oil exports this week following a 26 October fire at one of its primary oil storage depots. The fire at the Zubair-1 depot’s main pumping station caused two fatalities and knocked out 1mn b/d of pipeline throughput capacity.
Basrah Oil Company (BOC) has since implemented workarounds to divert crude into alternative pipelines, and after two days the state firm was able to re-route flows to the nearby Zubair-2 depot (see map). This allowed displaced volumes to be delivered to Iraq’s offshore export terminals, and Kpler data shows that loadings rebounded later in the week. (CONTINUED - 1221 WORDS)
