BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq's oil exports were still running at half their normal levels Saturday as a Shi'ite uprising forced authorities to keep a main southern pipeline shut, a South Oil Company official said.
Staff and operations at the state-owned company were still under threat from the Mehdi Army militia of anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers set fire to the company's headquarters in Basra city on Thursday, the official said.
"A group of armed men came this morning and threatened to shoot any manager who comes back to work," said the official, who declined to be named.
Mehdi Army officials in Basra had denied makings such threats or having a role in the attack on the company, which is responsible for the oil sector in the south.
Crude from southern oil fields to two offshore terminals has been flowing through a secondary 42-inch pipeline at one million barrels per day since saboteurs attacked the main pipeline on Aug. 8.
The main 48-inch pipeline was subsequently repaired but operated only briefly.
The south accounts for all of Iraq's oil exports. Sabotage has kept another pipeline running through Turkey from northern fields mostly shut since the U.S. invasion.
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