Islamic State Strikes Oil, Gas Facilities in Iraq

Attacks at AB2 gas compressor station, Bai Hassan oil field kill at least five local workers

The Wall Street Journal

By SARAH KENT and  GHASSAN ADNAN
Updated July 31, 2016 2:01 p.m. ET

BAGHDAD—Islamic State claimed twin attacks on oil and gas facilities in northern Iraq on Sunday that killed at least five local employees, the latest in northern Iraq by the extremist group, which relies on oil for a significant portion of its revenue.

Four suicide bombers hit the Bai Hassan oil field, prompting an hourslong standoff with local forces, said a colonel with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces that control the area. The field is one of the largest in the region of Kirkuk, producing more than 175,000 barrels a day, according to oil officials.

Three of the attackers were dead, he said, and one remained at large.



An engineer at the oil field was killed in the assault and a fire raged hours after one suicide bomber blew himself up, damaging two oil-storage tanks, Iraqi officials said. Output from the field has been shut down since Saturday night, but the reason for this was unclear.

In another attack claimed by Islamic State earlier in the day, a group of militants stormed the AB2 gas compressor station some 20 miles from Bai Hassan, killing four employees of the state-owned North Oil Co. and lacing the site with explosives, company officials said.

The assault on the gas compressor station was the first in the immediate area surrounding the AB2 facility, located some 10 miles west of the city of Kirkuk, since the extremist group began seizing large swaths of Iraq in 2014. The site has been closed off, a security official said, as security forces and police worked to defuse seven improvised explosive devices planted by the attackers.

Though Bai Hassan accounts for only a small portion of the more than four million barrels of crude that Iraq produces daily, the attacks underline how crucial infrastructure remains vulnerable despite a series of battlefield successes against Islamic State this year. Most of Iraq’s oil fields are in the south and under government control, but Kirkuk is in proximity to Islamic State’s territory, opening its fields to the possibility of attack.

Oil exports finance most of the Iraqi seizing cities including Ramadi and Fallujahgovernment’s budget. The country is trying to increase its output and work out disagreements over revenue-sharing to relieve the strain of weak crude prices and an expensive military campaign against the militants.

Iraqi forces have dealt Islamic State a series of battlefield losses since last fall, seizing cities including Ramadi and Fallujah.

Backed by airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition fighting the group in Iraq and Syria, they have reduced the amount of Iraqi territory under the group’s control, once estimated at one-third of the country.

They have also significantly damaged Islamic State’s oil infrastructure. In July, U.S. military officials in Baghdad estimated that the group’s oil revenue had been cut to about half of its peak.

Iraq’s army is now preparing for a major planned offensive to clear Islamic State from Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

As the group loses territory, it has reverted back to guerilla-style tactics, stepping up a campaign of suicide and gun attacks targeting civilians in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country.

Write to Sarah Kent at sarah.kent@wsj.com