South Iraq oil fields in allies' hands
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Allied forces are now in control of the oil fields of southern Iraq and are bringing in contractors to extinguish fires burning at seven oil wells, Pentagon officials told NBC News on Friday. EARLIER, BRITISH military officials scaled back their estimate of the number of oil wells burning in southern Iraq, saying that only seven wells were ablaze -- not the 30 reported earlier.
The report of seven wells burning matched the number being reported by the Pentagon. The update came from British Adm. Sir Michael Boyce, chief of defense staff, at a briefing in London.
The reason for the rollback from the earlier estimate was not clear.
The allies say that Iraqi forces set fire to the wells as the invasion began, but Iraqi state television broadcast a report early Saturday saying that troops had set oil-filled trenches -- not wells -- ablaze in an effort to prevent U.S. and British warplanes from finding their targets.
"The leadership in Iraq and the government organizations are keen to preserve this wealth, developing and expanding its capability and not burning it," the television station said in a statement attributed to an "authorized source."
400 OIL WELLS IN AREA U.S. and British officials were pleased that the number of wells on fire was a small percentage of the 400 wells in the area near Basra.
"Put into context, that's perhaps not as bad as we might have feared," British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said earlier Friday.
Theoil fields of southern Iraqpump about half of the country's daily output of 2.5 million barrels.
A British military spokesman said the fires were set by Iraq. "Several of the oil heads have been set on fire by (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein's forces in an attempt to deflect us from the task," Capt. Al Lockwood told Reuters.
Another British spokesman, Col. Chris Vernon, told Reuters that "U.S. Marines are moving well into the ... oil fields, and it seems like we will be able to seize much of the oil structure intact."
The picture in northern Iraq was less clear amid unconfirmed reports that U.S. special operations forces had secured the giant oil fields around Kirkuk, the biggest of Iraq's 15 operational fields.
A U.S. official said earlier this month that Iraq had placed explosives at the Kirkuk fields to prevent their being captured in the event of a U.S. invasion.
MARKETS HAPPY Oil markets seemed to take comfort from the speed of the U.S.-British advance and shrugged off the news of the well fires. The lack of an impact from the war on oil shipments from Kuwait also inspired confidence.
Kuwait's state-run radio said Kuwaiti ports were operating normally Friday, and an oil industry source said crude shipments from Kuwaiti oil terminals were continuing without interruption.
The Pentagon has said it would try to secure Iraq's oil fields quickly to prevent Iraqi forces from damaging the country's 1,685 wells.
1991 FIRES Even before the current war began, the Pentagon had expressed fears that Saddam Hussein had planned to sabotage Iraq's oil fields.
In 1991, Iraqi troops destroyed more than 700 well heads in Kuwait, turning its oil fields into a desert inferno that took seven months to extinguish.
When Iraqi troops retreated from Kuwait inFebruary 1991,they attached plastic explosives to well heads and piled sandbags against them to direct the force of the explosions for maximum effect.
The result was geysers of burning crude at 603 wells, serious damage at more than 100 others and widespread environmental degradation. Teams of firefighters from the United States, Canada and eight other countries worked from April until November to put out the fires.
Most of the teams used seawater pumped through Kuwait's empty oil pipelines to battle the fires. The heat was so intense, at more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, that water sometimes continued boiling on the ground for two days afterward, said Mark Badick of Safety Boss, Inc.
"We've had fire helmets melt on our heads," said Badick, whose Calgary-based firm put out 180 of the Kuwaiti well fires.
Firefighters from Hungary had a different technique, using two jet engines mounted horizontally on a tank chassis -- a homemade vehicle they called "Big Wind" -- to blast flame-retardant foam at the fires.
It took Kuwait more than two years and $50 billion to restore its oil output to prewar levels. If Iraq sabotaged its oil fields, any cleanup could take far longer and cost much more.
12 YEARS OF SANCTIONS Iraq's fields and pipelines are badly run down after 12 years of U.N. economic sanctions. Its fields are also much farther from the sea than those in Kuwait, meaning a ready source of water might not be so easily available.
Destruction could be especially bad if Iraqis set off explosives underground, deep within the well shafts themselves. If that happened, firefighters would have to drill a new "relief well" and pump a mixture of sand, gel and mud into each damaged shaft to try to plug it up and stop the blowout.
"It's a long, arduous process," Badick said. Whereas he and his crews put out as many as five fires a day in Kuwait, cleaning up after a single underground explosion can take two months.