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Us leaves british with oilfields { March 21 2003 }

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   http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=U44TPRL10LZYYCRBAE0CFEY?type=focusIraqNews&storyID=2425057

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=U44TPRL10LZYYCRBAE0CFEY?type=focusIraqNews&storyID=2425057

UK, U.S. Forces Secure South Iraqi Oil Facilities
Fri March 21, 2003 01:37 PM ET

By Mona Megalli and Peg Mackey
DUBAI (Reuters) - U.S. and British troops moved swiftly on Friday to secure Iraq's vital oil facilities and snuff out oilfield fires on day two of a war Washington says is not about taking over the country's vast petroleum wealth.

The allies had vowed to secure the giant fields of Kirkuk in the north and Rumaila in the south to protect Iraq's resources from sabotage by Baghdad.

Troops took their targets early on Friday capturing the Faw peninsula on Iraq's southern tip, leaving British marines in control of the crucial oil installations.

"All our targets were successfully captured," said Colonel Steve Cox, commander of the landing force.

The first marine units were successful in securing three targets -- an oil metering station and two pipeline outlets, and the offshore Mina al-Bakr and Khor al-Amaya terminals connected by pipeline to Faw.

Britain's defense chief said only seven oil wells in Rumaila had been torched, less than the 30 previously reported.

Admiral Sir Michael Boyce said that all key components of the fields were safe.

Iraq exports one million barrels per day (bpd) of crude from the south and another 700,000 bpd from the opposite end of the country out of the Kirkuk fields via pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

British forces are now aiming to take Iraq's second city Basra, just north of Faw and close to the Rumaila fields, in a bid to thwart any further sabotage attempts by Iraqi forces. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein torched more than 700 Kuwait oil wells in the 1991 Gulf War.

"The U.S. Marines are moving well into the Rumaila oilfields and it seems like we will be able to seize much of the oil structure intact," Colonel Chris Vernon told Reuters by telephone from the Kuwaiti desert.

The forces will need to move rapidly in order to control fires which are already blazing in Iraq's southern oilfields.

The picture in northern Iraq was less clear after an unconfirmed report that U.S. special forces might have secured the oilfields around Kirkuk, the biggest of Iraq's 15 operational fields.

A U.S. official said earlier this month that Iraq had placed explosives at the Kirkuk fields to prevent them being captured in the event of a U.S. invasion.

The pipeline that delivers oil from Kirkuk to Ceyhan is still open. It runs west to supply the Baiji refinery near Saddam's birthplace of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, before turning north through Turkey.

With western traders not willing to risk buying Iraqi oil that might soon get cut off, no tankers are waiting to load at Ceyhan and storage tanks are likely to be full by Saturday, forcing a halt to pumping.

U.N. oil inspectors who monitored Iraq's oil-for-food program were evacuated ahead of the U.S.-led attack.

Iraq's two other main oil refineries at Basra and Doura near Bagdhad, may also be on the allied list of oil targets.



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