Syria – Deir Ezzor : Terrorists sabotaged the oil pipeline

A terrorist group targeted an oil pipeline south of al-Quriye in Deir Ezzor with an explosive device at 3 AM on Saturday, causing a fire at the area of explosion.

An official Source at the Petroleum Ministry told SANA that the targeted pipeline has a diameter of 24 inches and transports crude oil from al-Omar field which belongs to al-Furat oil company to the second station T2.

The source said that the pipeline wasn’t operating at the time of explosion but it was filled with oil, leading to the loss of approximately 2000 barrels due to the fire, adding that oil was pumped into the auxiliary pipeline and that production wasn’t affected by this attack.

The source went on to say that the oil company’s firemen and Deir Ezzor fire department and civil defense managed to put out the fires after a few hours, and that maintenance is underway to repair the pipeleine which is expected to become functional again within the next two days.

This particular pipeline was attacked multiple times in several areas before, causing brief pauses in pumping which didn’t affect production due to the existence of auxiliary lines and due to carrying out repairs quickly.

Armed terrorist groups attacked several oil, gas and fuel pipelines across Syria, including a fuel pipeline from Homs to Hama and Idleb in December 2011 and a gas pipeline feeds two electric power plants in January 2012.