from: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0419war-oil19.html

Officials say Iraqi oil may flow in 6 weeks
Undamaged wells mean quick return

Patrick McDowell
Associated Press
Apr. 19, 2003 12:00 AM

KUWAIT CITY - The oil well fires are out, looted equipment is being recovered and damage was less than feared, leading U.S. officials to predict that Iraq's southern oil fields could be producing 1.1 million barrels a day within seven weeks.

Revenues from renewed oil sales would be a big boost for Iraq's 24 million people. At first, oil revenues would go into a revamped version of the oil-for-food program mandated by the United Nations.

Prospects are less clear for Iraq's northern oil fields. Industry employees there say widespread looting after the fall of Saddam's regime left production facilities, offices and worker housing so ransacked that it's unlikely oil will be flowing soon.

Damage to the southern oil fields from combat or sabotage was comparatively light.

Aware that Iraq's retreating army set 700 oil wells afire in Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, military planners made sure coalition troops seized the southern fields before Iraqi soldiers could sabotage wellheads and other facilities.

"We were really fortunate," said Tom Logsdon, program manager for restoring Iraqi oil production under the interim military administration.

"We didn't have near as much damage as we thought we would," Logsdon said in an interview Thursday. "The Marines did a lot of training on capturing the infrastructure. They went in so fast the Iraqis didn't have time to sabotage."

Iraqi troops set fire to only six wells. The last two were extinguished this week.

The critical facilities saved were six large gas-oil separation plants in the Rumeila fields, which were captured with minimal damage. The plants separate natural gas from crude oil.

Thieves carted off some pumps, motors and other equipment from the southern fields, but security has been tightened and British troops have recovered 87 vehicles stolen from oil operations, Logsdon said.

Over the past few weeks, Logsdon and his team have inspected the separation plants, pipelines, wells and other infrastructure and hired about 170 Iraqi oil workers to help get them working. Military experts have nearly finished sweeps for land mines and other explosives.

They hope to bring the first separation plant back into operation in about six weeks, which would allow the pumping of 450,000 barrels of oil a day. The other plants could be restarted in the following week, bringing total daily output in the south to 1.1 million barrels, Logsdon said.

Getting a dozen smaller plants back into production in the rest of the Rumeila fields and in Iraq's northern oil region around Kirkuk and Mosul would further boost output. But Logsdon declined to estimate how long that might take or what production would be.