ANKARA, Turkey, April 5 (UPI) -- A spokesman for a Turkish oil pipeline company said oil flow from northern Iraq was halted because of a blast on a regional oil transit route.
Turkish authorities extinguished a fire on the Kirkuk-Yumurtalik oil pipeline after an explosion on the pipeline about 37 miles inside the Turkish border, Bloomberg News reports.
Bloomberg last month said daily exports of Kirkuk crude for April were expected reach 510,000 barrels per day, compared with around 425,000 bpd for March.
Shipments of Kirkuk crude oil from the Turkish port of Ceyhan were disrupted several times since November because of inclement weather, explosions or technical problems.
An unidentified official from Turkish pipeline company BOTAS told the regional Trend news service that they suspected the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party was behind the latest attack.
Turkish and Iraqi authorities were discussing using a smaller pipeline to bypass the larger oil route. It was unclear how much crude oil was designated for the Kirkuk-Yumurtalik pipeline.
The explosion is under investigation.
