Engineers assessed damage to a sabotaged oil pipeline in southern Iraq on Sunday as exports remained at half their pre-attack level, officials and shipping agents said.
The Saturday attack on the smaller of two pipelines feeding two offshore Gulf terminals stopped operations at the Khor al-Amya terminal and restricted flows to the bigger Basra terminal, from where most Iraqi oil is exported.
Flows to tankers at the Basra terminal, formerly known as Mina al-Bakr, were running at 41,000 barrels per hour.
The tanker Stena Congress was loading at 31,000 barrels per hour and the Astro Cassiopeia at 11,000 barrels per hour.
Flows to Basra platforms were running at 70,000 barrels per hour before the attack, which blew a hole in the 42-inch pipeline running through the Faw Peninsula, despite security that was stepped up following similar attacks last month.
Iraqi exports are dependent on the Gulf route. Attacks on the two southern pipelines and other oil installations have stopped exports several times this year.
Senior Iraqi security official Ahmad al-Khafaji told Reuters last week that sabotage against oil installations will continue unless neighbouring countries co-operate in stopping infiltration of foreigners behind the attacks.
Progress in stopping sabotage on a network of domestic and export pipelines stretching for thousands of kilometres (miles) will be slow otherwise, Khafaji said.
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