A fire at Iraq’s southern Basra offshore oil export terminal briefly halted crude loading operations on Tuesday but was put out and loading resumed, Iraqi oil officials said.
The fire occurred in a residential section of the terminal accommodating workers and did not directly damage oil infrastructure, a port official and sources in the Basra Oil Company said.
“Fire erupted at around 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) and it was put out in two hours. We had to halt crude loading operations for three hours for safety issues,” said a port official who was speaking from the Basra port.
Basra port has restored full operations with no stoppage at the oil exports jetties, said a statement from the state-run Basra Oil Company. Four workers suffered minor injuries, it added.
The Basra terminal’s loading capacity is estimated at around 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd).
Iraq is also relying on four operational single point moorings (SPMs) for loading oil tankers, each with a capacity of 850,000 bpd.
The bulk of Iraq’s oil is exported via the southern terminals, which account for more than 95 per cent of the OPEC producer’s state revenue.