Major fire spreads at Iraq's biggest oil refinery

Source: Reuters

BAIJI, Iraq, Jan 7 (Reuters) - An explosion at a fuel storage tank caused a huge blaze at Iraq's largest refinery on Monday, injuring at least 36 workers, and the fire was spreading, witnesses said.

A Reuters cameraman at the the Baiji refinery complex, some 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, said he had seen at least one dead body and had counted at least 36 others suffering from burns.

"This is the biggest fire I have ever seen at Baiji refinery. We have not had a fire like this before," said an engineer, employed at the plant since 2003, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

. . .

The engineer said the fire was spreading after an initial explosion at a storage tank containing 5 million litres of fuel. A second engineer said a technical fault had started the fire.

The refineries at Baiji in north-central Iraq have capacity of 310,000 barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and have been operating at less than full capacity due to power cuts and other problems including fires.



Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L0796415.htm

Most of the money we give to Iraq for oil refinery maintenance just disappears into Halliburton's pockets without one lick of work actually being done.

These plants need to be maintained but maintenance needs funding.

will be shooting up at the stations this afternoon. :eyes:

:hi:

It means they'll have to import a bit more, but that's difficult. Mostly it just means more domestic shortages: of government revenue, of heating oil, of gasoline.

And by "domestic", I mean "domestic to Iraq". There are two systems of pipelines (with some overlap between them) in Iraq: Some ship abroad (via Turkey or Basra), others are for domestic used--moving oil to domestic refineries. There aren't any refineries in Iraq, AFAIK, that produce petroleum products for export ... at least not for legal export. Also IIRC, the Baiji refinery sent fuel directly to a large power generation facility, so it'll make maintaining the electricity supply above 2003 levels difficult.

"So all of you proles can merrily celebrate the Massive Bonus Profits that we republicon homelander oil cronies will be raking in. Smirk.

"Oh yeah, almost forgot my republicon propaganda talking point: 'too bad about all you people who can't afford to heat your homes or drive your cars. Don't forget to vote republicon ! Smirk."

- Commander AWOL

a refinery..They must be desperate..Usually when they run out of excuses to raise the gas price,* just threatens Iran; guess that won't work anymore

:eyes:

Any takers?

Jay