Attacks on Iraqi pipelines and other oil facilities have dropped sharply, a top security official said, boding well for the safety of foreign firms wading into Iraq's rich but risky oil sector, Reuters reported. The Iraqi oil sector has fallen prey to repeated attack over six years of chaos and insurgency since U.S.-led soldiers ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003. Oil flows have been disrupted by pipeline bombs, terminals crippled in suicide attacks and officials blown up in roadside blasts or kidnapped from their offices at gunpoint. But General Hamid al-Husseini, who heads Iraq's specialised Oil Police, said in a recent interview that his 30,000 soldiers trained with U.S. backing had made great strides and were now up to the task of protecting Iraq's oil industry. "Our priorities are to secure strategic pipelines in the north and south, four major refineries, reservoirs pipelines and production," Husseini said. He gave as an example China's National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), which in March inaugurated a $3 billion oil project at the Ahdab field in southeastern Wasit province and which Husseini said had had no security problems so far. CNPC "is depending on us completely for personal security, their facilities, their headquarters. They haven't hired any private security," he said. Husseini's job is a formidable one for a country with 7,500 km (4,500 miles) of pipeline and oil sites in areas still plagued by insurgency. But it is crucial given Iraq's almost absolute economic reliance on oil exports. In May, twin bombs killed four people outside the fortress-like Oil Ministry compound in central Baghdad. Safety is a key issue for western majors contemplating entering Iraq, which is keen to boost production hovering around pre-invasion levels at 2.5 million barrels per day. Violence has fallen sharply across the country and the United States is preparing to withdraw its force by 2012. Since the early, lawless days of the war, smuggling of Iraq's most precious resource has abated, Husseini said. But it still goes on. In western Iraq, al Qaeda militants exact 'taxes' from trucks carrying oil across the vast desert region of Anbar and use the funds their activities. Criminal gangs also still smuggle oil in southern Iraq, he said. He acknowledged the Oil Police, which he said needed to grow by at least 50 percent, lacked equipment and facilities and was still growing into its role in a fledgling democracy. "The former regime was tough when it came to dealing with this issue. They killed anyone who even tried to touch an oil pipeline," he said. U.S. officials have said that the Oil Police will only be ready to take over full security of oil pipelines, some of which has been guarded by Iraqi soldiers, by late 2010. Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani has been courting global firms for deals to develop major oil and gas fields, but Iraq's demanding contract terms have made companies already skittish about violence and a murky legal framework even more reluctant. His contract auction in June was deemed a disappointment by many because of eight fields offered only one secured a deal, in which BP and CNPC will develop the giant Rumaila field.
