2 Iraqi pipelines fixed, but another is bombed

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Repair crews patched up the larger of two southern crude oil pipelines damaged by saboteurs and resumed pumping to offshore terminals, an oil official said Saturday.

But hours after the pumping resumed, attackers blasted a small pipeline that feeds into domestic storage tanks, igniting a blaze, Iraqi police said.

Oil exports are hovering between 1.7 million and 1.8 million barrels a day -- about the same level as before the war started in March 2003, according to an official with the South Oil Co.

The damage to the two lines essentially cut off Iraqi oil exports earlier this month, heightening supply fears.

One of the pipelines was brought back on line Monday near the southern city of Basra, but repairs on the second one took longer because it was more damaged. The crude is sent to storage terminals on the Faw Peninsula, then pumped through to the Basra and Khor Amaya terminals.

"Pumping began at about 10 a.m. this morning," the oil official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said of the second line.

A bomb planted by saboteurs underneath a small, domestic feeder line exploded Saturday evening near the town of Latifiyah, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, Iraqi 1st Lt. Alaa Hussein said. The line carries crude to storage tanks in Latifiyah.

Insurgents repeatedly have targeted the pipelines in a bid to restrict the new interim government's access to export revenue needed for post-handover reconstruction efforts.

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