KIRKUK, Iraq, May 21 (UPI) -- An oil pipeline in Iraq's north and those protecting the oil sector are the latest targets in the country's battle to increase oil production.
Part of the oil pipeline near Kirkuk was bombed while a patrol from the Oil Protection Force was attacked by gunmen, the Voice of Iraq news agency reports.
"The attack targeted a patrol of the 1st Infrastructure Brigade during the early hours of Sunday near the village of al-Safra on the Kirkuk-Baiji highway, southwest of Kirkuk," a security officer told VOI on condition of anonymity.
While Iraq has the third-largest pool of oil reserves in the world, it struggles to produce 2 million barrels per day. Aside from violence, the sector is hindered by a lack of investment now and during the reign of Saddam Hussein. Electricity is intermittent, further hampering refineries.
Most of Iraq's reserves and production are in the Shiite-controlled south, where violence is largely sectarian and doesn't target oil, allowing Iraq's 1.6 million bpd of exports to market.
In the north, insurgents have targeted the oil pipeline from Kirkuk to a port in Ceyhan, Turkey, so often it is considered irrelevant. A new pipeline, intended to bypass the Sunni-controlled area where the current northern pipeline winds through, has been talked about but not built. And with nowhere to send the oil, production in the north is limited to merely 300,000 bpd at the most.
