Iran Oil Pipeline Catches Fire After Blast

A pipeline in southern Iran caught fire Friday following an explosion, the company managing the facility said, the latest high-profile incident in Iran's sanctions-hit oil industry.

In statements posted on its website, the state-owned National Iranian South Oil Co., or NISOC, said the fire on the pipeline, which supplies crude to refineries in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, had been "fully contained."

It added it "caused no casualties" and that "the relevant experts are studying the causes."

The Mehr news agency, which first reported the incident, quoted the company as saying it wasn't clear if the fire had been triggered by technical problems or terrorism.

The semi-official agency said the infrastructure had a transfer capacity of between 3,000 and 4,000 barrels of oil per day, and that flows had been interrupted. But the Reuters news agency reported the pipeline had a capacity of 40,000 barrels a day. A NISOC official couldn't immediately comment.

Only a week ago, Iran briefly interrupted gas exports to Turkey following another pipeline blast which was later blamed on Kurdish guerrillas.

But incidents have also been blamed by experts on a lack of investment and access to foreign technologies due to sanctions against Iran.

In May, a blast killed several workers at Iran's largest refinery just as president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was inaugurating a new unit at the plant. Iranian news reports later tied the incident to insufficient access to European technical know-how.

Earlier this week, the managing director of NISOC—the company that suffered the incident this Friday—was quoted as saying Iran was unable to access the equipment it needs to maintain its production. "Iran faces a shortage of onshore and offshore drilling rigs," Hormoz Ghalavan said.

Source: WSJ