Saturday, February 26, 2011

Iraq's Largest Oil Refinery Shut Down After Terrorists Kill Four People And Bomb Facility

From Gateway Pundit:

6:58 AM (13 hours ago)Iraq’s Largest Oil Refinery Shut Down After Terrorists Kill 4 People & Bomb Facilityfrom Gateway Pundit by Jim HoftThank goodness Obama sunk all that money into failed green projects to supply our economy with energy or we’d be in real trouble



 
A general view of the Baiji oil refinery, located some 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, in this January 21, 2009 file photo. Iraq’s largest oil refinery was shut down on February 26, 2011 after militants carried out a bomb attack and set it on fire, the governor of Salahuddin province said. (Reuters)




Reuters reported:



Militants attacked Iraq’s largest oil refinery on Saturday, killing four workers and detonating bombs that touched off a raging fire and shut down the plant in northern Iraq, officials said.



In the southern town of Samawa, a second refinery was shut down by fire but officials said initial reports indicated it was started by a technical failure rather than an insurgent attack.



The militants planted explosives at a kerosene and benzene production unit at the northern refinery in the town of Baiji, a former al Qaeda stronghold 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, the governor of Salahuddin province, Ahmed al-Jubouri, said.



…”The attack is part of a terrorist plan, which targets Iraq’s oil facilities and aims to undermine the Oil Ministry after it succeeded in supplying enough oil products to meet domestic needs,” he said in a statement read to Reuters.



The blast, which happened before dawn, sparked a fire that was later brought under control, a police source said. It took about five hours and up to 50 fire trucks to contain the blaze.



The damaged unit, known as the North Refinery, has a production capacity of 150,000 barrels per day, a Baiji official said, adding the damage has been too severe to fix in few days.



“Fixing the damage will take long time. We are not talking about days, the damage is too severe,” said the Baiji official, who asked not to be named.



“Hopefully in the next few days we can partially restart the refinery,” he said, adding that the plant has enough stock to cover domestic needs for at least seven days.



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