Iran blast sabotage, revolutionaries say

Press, 10 July 1979, Page 8

Iran blast sabotage, revolutionaries say

NZPA-Reuter Teheran A revolutionary committee at Abadan in southern Iran has attributed to sabotage the pipeline explosion that has cut the flow of oil to the world’s biggest refinery.

Iran’s international oilmarketing chief, Mr Reza Azimi, said yesterday that exports of refined products would be hit, although it was too early to assess the exact impact of the blast. The initial explosion occurred on Sunday at the Gulf port of Mahshahr, setting fire to an oil and a gas pipeline. Heat from the blaze melted a metal bridge and set seven other pipelines ablaze before the fire was finally brought under control.

A spokesman for the Abadan revolutionary committee said it had received unconfirmed reports that bombs had been strapped to the crippled pipelines. He said by telephone: “We have no firm evidence yet, but we are certain it was sabotage.” Abadan, Iran’s only export refinery, ships some 200,000 to 300,000 barrels of refined products aboard daily. Khuzestan has been the sienc of continuing tension between the Government authorities and autonomyseeking Arabs. Iranian officials have accused Iraqis of running guns to the Arabs and of sending in saboteurs. There has also been unrest among oil workers over the unexplained arrest by the revolutionary authorities of three of their leaders. The oil workers’ union has demanded either their release or an open trial. Mr Azimi told NZPA Reuter: “We still don’t know whether it was sabotage or not.” Mr Azimi, an executive of

the National Iranian Oil Company, said the blaze affected both crude supplies being fed into the refinery and refined products being pumped out. An N.1.0.C. . spokesman said supplies into the refinery had been cut, and it was operating on its reserves.

The Governor of Ahwaz, capital of Khuzestan province, in which Abadan is situated, said the blast had been caused by poor maintenance during this year’s oil strike, which helped to topple the Shah.

He said moisture that had built up around the pipelines had not been cleared and this had caused them to rust and then ignite in the present hot weather. In a speech to Islamic Revolutionary Guards published yesterday, Iran’s unofficial Head of State, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, said foreign hands were stirring up trouble.

He said misguided people were uniting for underground activities against the revolutionary authorities. “If we want to reach final victory, we must know what to do, so that we will not suffer the same fate as Hit, ler, who committed suicide,” Ayatollah Khomeiny said. A lay supporter of the ruling clergy, Haj Taqi tarkhani, has been fatally shot outside his Teheran home, and leaflets left near the scene indicated that the shadowy Forghan guerrilla group was responsible.

The evening newspaper, “Etela’At,” hinted that the gunmen may have got the wrong man. They said leaflets dropped at the scene later indicated that Mr Ali Asghar, % the dead man’s brother, was the intended victim.

.The dead man was a rich and prominent'contributor to the Mosque, whereas his brother is a businessman whose assets were recently confiscated by the authorities. It was the third assassination attributed to Forghan, which portrays itself as a fundamentalist Islamic guerrilla group. Iran yesterday announced that it would accept payment for its oil in hard currencies other than the United States dollar. Until now export settlements have been payable exclusively in the United States currency. The official P.A.R.S. news agency quoted the Economy Minister (Mr Ali Ardalan) as saying N.1.0.C. would now accept such currencies as the West German deutschmark, the Japanese yen, the French franc, and other currencies regarded as valid by N.1.0.C. Mr Ardalan gave no reason for the move.

Although Iran is the world’s second-largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, its switch away from the United States dollar as the exclusive currency in which oil payments are made will make little difference to the oil market or the currency itself, according to an authoritative banking source.

The source said this assumed that the dollar was maintained as the unit in which prices were expressed. Iran was unlikely to change this system without first consulting its partners in the 13-nation Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, he added. New prices for Iranian oil announced after last month’s O.P.E.C. oil-price increases were expressed in United States dollars.