KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region- The Islamic State militants have bombed Kirkuk's oil installations 8 times since January this year, causing periodical halt in the flow of oil to the Turkish Ceyhan port.
Manager of Iraq's Northern Oil Company (NOC) told Rudaw the attacks have hade "great impact" on both export and the environment.
"Great amounts of oil is immediately wasted after every attack which also damages the surrounding areas along the pipelines as the crude leaks into the ground and contaminates the area," Farhad Hamza said.
Hamza said the bombings usually cause fires which quickly engulf nearby installations and create large clouds of smoke soared into the sky.
According to an agreement between Iraqi authorities and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) around 240,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) are exported from the two main fileds of Bay Hasan and Havana in Kirkuk through the Kurdistan pipelines.
With almost 10 percent of Iraq's total oil reserves estimated at 140 billion bpd, Kirkuk has considerably larger production capabilities, but disagreements between Baghdad and Erbil over revenue sharing have impacted the export.
"Iraqi authorities have halted the export from Baba Gurgur oil field for the past five months and store the produced oil there," said Yousif Shwani, an oil engineer in the province.
Local authorities say reparation of the oil wells have cost the province over $1 million but the greater loss is the wasted oil crude after each attacks.
The export from Bay Hasan dropped to around 100,000 bpd from earlier 170,000 bpd due to the damage that was inflicted on the oil field in July.
Earlier this month a group of ISIS militants launched a surprise attack against a gas installation and some oil wells south of Kirkuk, killing some guards before they were repelled by security and Peshmerga forces.
Local military officials have long warned that the area’s proximity to the ISIS stronghold of Hawija has made the oilfields vulnerable to attacks.
