22 April 2003
Iraqi oil officials are trying to assess the state of the industry in various parts of the country, after setting up an ad hoc task force in recent days to try and bring operations back, especially to meet domestic needs.
The task force, led by Thamer al-Ghadban, the oil ministry’s director general of planning, has been sending messengers to different facilities in the north and south of Iraq to report back on the state of companies and facilities, and the damage sustained from bombing or sabotage.
At the moment, messengers are the only way for Iraqis to communicate between different areas of the country. The task force was set up independent of US plans for a civil administration in Iraq.
On Monday, messengers from the task force were sent to the Baiji refining complex north of Baghdad, as well as to the northern oil production hub of Kirkuk, to report back on the state of facilities there, al-Ghadban told International Oil Daily.
“We are focusing on operational issues only at the moment and our priority is to get crude oil flowing to Daura [refinery] from Kirkuk, and to bring the North Gas complex near Kirkuk back to operation as soon as possible, to cope with shortage in domestic LPG,” al-Ghadban said. Hundreds of Iraqis surround Daura hoping for access to the small stores of LPG cylinders at the complex.
During three weeks of bombing by US-led forces, Daura, Baghdad’s only refinery, did not interrupt its operations for a single day.
The Oil Products Distribution Co., which supplies filling stations across Iraq, similarly kept going.
But the day Baghdad fell to US forces and a state of lawlessness descended on the capital, everything came to a standstill, senior officials at the refinery and the distribution company told International Oil Daily. After a weeklong shutdown, the Daura refinery has now been restored to partial operation.
At the complex, where the products distribution company and State Iraqi Pipeline Co. also have their headquarters, operations remain on high alert. Checkpoints manned by armed employees and US soldiers vet those entering, ready to fight if looters attempt to force their way in.
“For five days my employees who live in the compound defended the refinery complex day and night with their own guns, until US forces arrived on the sixth day. The Americans want electricity back in Baghdad, which cannot be done without the Daura refinery so they offered their protection,” Dathar al-Khashab, the director general of Daura, said in an interview.
In an earlier interview in February, al-Khashab was in a defiant mood, declaring that “the Americans should pay for every inch they take of the Iraqi soil” and swearing they would only enter Daura over his “dead body”.
Today, a common purpose has tamed this hostility, at least for now. “They are occupiers, but at the moment we share the same objective, which is protecting this place,” al-Khashab said this week, after several US army officers left his office having struck a deal to lease small tankers and trucks for a month.
“We need to secure transport assets to supplement what we have, and at the same time we know that leasing those would help infuse the economy,” said Maj. John Breland of the civil affairs unit of the 101st Airborne Division as he left al-Khashab’s office. Breland added that the civil affairs unit’s job is to liaise between the military and civilians and relief organizations, and report back to Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks, who has established headquarters on the outskirts of Baghdad.
Daura resumed operations at one of its crude oil units last Friday, with a second following the next day — ending a week of stoppage. Now, the plant is running at 40,000 barrels per day, about 50% of its prewar capacity. With Baghdad still in total darkness at night, al-Khashab said that building up further capacity at certain units with a local power generator is possible, but is linked to power stations in the city drawing fuel supply from the refinery.
The same applies to filling stations. Of Baghdad’s 100 stations, only 58 were functioning on Sunday, with the rest being gradually fixed and rehabilitated after looting.
“We are supplying gasoline stations with limited amounts of no more than 36,000 liters each, instead of the usual 100,000-200,000 liters, until we are sure they are safe,” said Samir Mikhael, director general of the Oil Products Distribution Co.
Of 1,200 road tankers, only 400 are currently able to transport fuel oil and gasoline around Baghdad. Mikhael is waiting for word on the state of the remaining 630 filling stations his company normally supplies with products across Iraq. For now, all supply is coming out of storage, he said.
By Ruba Husari, Baghdad
(Published in International Oil Daily April 22, 2003)