Fire breaks out at Iraq’s oil refinery Several workers injured

On January 24, a large fire broke out at a refinery in the Rumaila oil field in southern Iraq, leaving several workers injured with various degrees of severity.

Six refinery workers were hurt, including one with a broken leg, another with facial burns, and two suffering from smoke inhalation, Caliber.Az reports via foreign media. 

The fire ignited at the fifth gas-oil separation station in the Rumaila field, with efforts from firefighting teams still unable to control the flames. 

Units from the Ninth Brigade of the Energy Police were deployed to help extinguish the fire, and a strict security cordon was placed around the affected area. Production at Iraq's Rumaila oilfield is approximately 1.45 million barrels per day (bpd).

Rumaila is one of the world’s greatest so-called super-giant oilfields – those that contain over a billion barrels of recoverable oil. It is estimated that some 17 billion barrels of recoverable oil are still contained within Rumaila’s reservoirs. The field is located 50km to the west of the city of Basra, southern Iraq.

The Basra region is home to all six of Iraq’s ports, including the deep-water facility at Umm Qasr. Rumaila encompasses an area of 1,600 square kilometres, extending approximately 80km north to south and 20km west to east, with the main anticline consisting of two domes, South Rumaila and North Rumaila.

By Naila Huseynova