Reports in the Middle Eastern media indicate the emergency services have their hands full fighting the fires which were brought about when a sabotage attack on an oil pipeline ignited leaking oil from previous attacks.

In a statement the state-owned South Oil Co said, “The blast was caused by oil and gas that have flooded the area in the South Rumaila oilfield. Southern oil exports [are] still below normal [while] firefighters battle to put out a new blaze at a sabotaged pipeline.”

“[We deny] media reports that last week’s attacks completely halted output from South Rumaila. There are back-up pipelines still feeding storage tanks at the Zubair One station,” it added.

Currently, loadings at offshore Gulf platforms are running at 1.2 million-1.4 million bpd.