Ingenuity, Elbow Grease and Cash Help Creaky Refinery Come to Life

The twin crude-oil flare towers at the Basra Refinery shot flames more than 15 feet into the sky Wednesday, signaling that southern Iraq’s most vital oil facility was back on line for the first time since the war began. But getting the plant up and running was nothing short of bizarre.

To deliver senior Iraqi refinery executives brave enough to run it, a local sheik-turned-temporary governor drew up a detailed business plan.

To get more than 2,000 other employees back on the job, the British Army’s 7th Armored Brigade doled out cash it had commandeered from the Basra Central Bank, paying salaries and fat bonuses. And to light one of the two 600-foot towers, British Army Chief Warrant Officer Keith James fired more than 60 tracer-fire and flare-gun rounds from the ground.

Somehow, the plan came together. When the jury-rigged refinery creaked, cranked and groaned up to half its 140,000-barrels-per-day capacity just before midnight Wednesday, it was a watershed moment.

“The people were so happy when we ignited [the towers], they danced in the streets,” said Ebrahem Thaer, a 20-year veteran of the Basra Refinery who is now its acting director. “Everybody needs the fuel. Fuel means light. Without it, there is only darkness.”

In addition to processing crude oil into diesel that runs the region’s power plants, the Basra facility produces gasoline and kerosene. Since the war began, millions of southern Iraqis have been suffering through blackouts and hours-long lines at gas stations. Alleviating shortages, military officials say, is important to preventing unrest that could undercut the U.S.-British presence here.

“The flare tower is like a beacon. It can be seen for miles around, and it shows life is coming back to normal,” said Brig. Gen. Robert Crear, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officer in charge of restoring Iraq’s oil industry.

When the Basra Refinery goes into full capacity Saturday, its production will far exceed Iraq’s other two major refineries, which are running at a third or less of their capability, the Corps says. Although restoring the Basra plant is a key step in reviving what was a 2.5-million-barrels-per-day prewar petroleum industry, the facility’s production will be limited strictly to local consumption for several weeks because the oil fields are still beset by problems.

Damaged Pipelines

There are 19 pipeline breaks in the system, seven of which are on fire, Crear said. Americans working for Texas-based Halliburton Co.’s KBR subsidiary, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root -- which won a contract potentially worth $7 billion to make emergency repairs to the Iraqi oil system -- are battling to fix the breaks every day, he said.

The 29-year-old Basra plant, which was partially destroyed by coalition forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, is a patchwork of cannibalized equipment and shoestring Iraqi innovation. It desperately needs spare parts. More than $200 million worth were ordered by Baghdad before the war, but they were not delivered because Iraqi government bank accounts have been frozen.

Fashioned from Czechoslovakian equipment and a 1960s-era British design, the facility will have to be replaced within five years, according to experts with the British Army’s Royal Engineers 516 Specialist Team, which used its innovation and sheer guile to get the facility running again.

When team leader Maj. Mark Tilley and the rest of his bulk- petroleum engineering crew arrived at the refinery 10 days ago, they found a group of Iraqi workers, led by Thaer, guarding it. To protect the plant, the Iraqis had even engaged in a bit of sabotage, hiding such key parts as ignition engines and fuses.

Tilley’s first step was to clear out all the Iraqis. Then, his team began assessing the plant’s most urgent physical needs. Meanwhile, the British commanders who now control Basra and much of southern Iraq worked with a local council that had taken shape in town to nominate potential plant managers.

The council named Jabbar Leaby, who identified himself as a “consultant” to the state-run Southern Oil Co. before the recent war, to head things up. It recommended Thaer to serve as the refinery’s “start-up strategic director.” British intelligence then investigated and cleared them, and Crear signed off on the new management.

Request to Workers

A local radio station and the new managers called on the refinery’s 3,500 workers to return to their jobs. This week, about 2,500 of them did.

Asked how he got so many back, Tilley said: “It’s simple. We paid them.”

According to Tilley, the 7th Brigade of the British Headquarters 1st Armored Division got to the Basra Central Bank before the looters did. The troops broke in, took the money and sequestered it in the Basra palace now serving as the British military headquarters.

Tilley wouldn’t disclose the total amount that the troops seized, but he said it filled an entire bathroom in the palace. A portion was delivered to the refinery by school bus Saturday, and on Sunday every worker who came got a month’s salary plus a bonus. The total payroll: more than 275 million dinars. That’s about $170,000, at the local exchange rate of 1,600 dinars to $1.

Chazab Hashem, 53, who has driven a Southern Oil Co. employee bus for the last 30 years, said he got his 8,000-dinar salary, plus a 40,000-dinar bonus.

“I don’t own a house, and I have three wives,” Hashem said. “But I am happy. We relax when we see such a thing.”

James, the British chief warrant officer, also felt a bit more relaxed when he surveyed the plant’s technology. He trained on it in Britain -- 28 years ago, when he joined Royal Dutch Shell at age 19.

A military reservist who was called away from his supervisory job at Shell to serve on Tilley’s team, James worked closely with the Iraqi engineers to restore the plant’s systems. But their efforts were not without difficulties -- both technical and cultural.

An initial attempt to fire up the refinery Monday was foiled when the power grid failed. Then there were the clashes with a corporate hierarchy shaped by a quarter-century of dictatorship. No worker, Tilley said, would move without direct orders or authorization.

“They’re quite excited about going into a free market, but they don’t know what that means,” Tilley said. “This is what’s so confusing. They want to have democracy, but they need authority.”

While Tilley is skeptical that the plant’s management and employees can transition to a Western-style business mentality, all the players who brought the refinery back to life seem pleased for the present. Tilley, however, insists that he wants no pomp when the plant reaches full production.

“I’m playing the whole thing down. We don’t need to draw attention,” he said, acknowledging persistent opposition to the U.S.-British military presence here.

“I would rather this place is not a target and that it just went on about its business supplying Iraqi oil,” he said. “We’ll have our own quiet hand-shaking ceremony. And then we’ll quietly melt away.”