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Pipeline bombs cut Rumaila flow, threaten exports

Production in Iraq's largest oil field has been cut and exports may suffer after saboteurs bombed the same section of pipeline targeted in an October attack.
Security forces at the site of a burning oil pipeline near the northern city of Kirkuk on July 3, 2006. Security has improved since then. But a series of attacks this month have renewed concerns over the stability of northern oil exports. (MARWAN IBRAHIM/AFP/Getty Images)

BAGHDAD - Three bombs tore through key pipelines in Basra on Tuesday night, forcing drastic production cuts at Iraq's largest oil field for the second time in two months and threatening to reduce Iraq's flow of exports.

Rumaila's production has been slashed by 600,000 to 700,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to a senior Oil Ministry official, after Iraq's state-run South Oil Company (SOC) shut down the damaged lines, which carry crude to the Zubair 1 storage facility.

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