Iraq completes repairs on Basra offshore oil terminal

BASRA: Repairs on a Basra floating oil terminal in the Gulf that was damaged by a tanker collision earlier this week were completed on Friday, Iraq's state-run Basra Oil Company said.

An oil tanker collided with a single point mooring (SPM) on Jan. 30 and was lightly damaged, the company said in a statement. The incident has not affected the loading operation programme or exports, the company added.

Iraq has four operational single point moorings (SPMs) for loading oil tankers, each with a loading capacity of 850,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Sources familiar with the loading operations at Iraq's southern terminals said a one-million barrel vessel was scheduled to load 850,000 barrels of a heavy crude cargo and hit the SPM while trying to birth.

The Basra Oil Company and Iraq's state oil marketer SOMO are working to determine the required compensation that the vessel's owner should pay for causing the damage at the floating terminal, the statement said.

Iraq, OPEC's second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, exports most of its crude from the southern Basra province on the Gulf.