Iraqi oil stoppage highlights challenges to economic revival

A raging oil fire and pipeline faults had stopped all oil flow from Iraq to Turkey yesterday just three days after the pipeline between the two countries was reopened, the military said.

US soldiers were helping Iraqi oil workers contain a fire that had been burning since yesterday outside the northern town of Baiji on a section of the 950km pipeline from the northern city of Kirkuk to the Turkish city of Ceyhan. snip

The pipeline stoppage highlights the challenges facing the US army as it battles alongside Iraqis to keep oil flowing through a crumbling network of pipe that could spring hundreds of leaks at any moment, Nicholson said. snip

A team of Army engineers called Task Force RIO - Restore Iraqi Oil, will spearhead rehabilitation efforts, he said.

But most of the expertise would come from Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, a Houston-based oil field-services and construction company. Halliburton is the former company of Vice President Dick Cheney which has major contracts for reconstruction in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

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