Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
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Damascus, SANA- Electricity Minister Mohammad Zuhair Kharbutli said that an explosion took place at the Arab gas pipeline between the areas of al-Dumair and Adraa in Damascus countryside which caused a blackout in Syria.
In a phone call with the Syrian T.V. on Monday dawn Minister Kharbutli said that the explosion is which the sixth of its kind on this pipeline in the same region, has a led to a drop in the gas pressure in Deir Ali generation station, and consequently the loss of gas quantities and the rest of the stations went out of work in succession, which led to a blackout in Syria.”
He added that the Electricity Ministry, in cooperation and coordination with the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, is working hard to restore the situation to normality and to restore power in a successive manner during the next few hours.
Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Ali Ghanem, for his part, said that an explosion took place on the main pipeline that feeds the southern region and it might have been caused by a terrorist act.
In a phone call with the Syrian T.V. channel, Ghanem added that the technical workshops and the bodies concerned at the Syrian Gas Company were informed from the first moments to start the immediate repair operations of the pipeline after assessing the damage and that work is underway to restore this line to its normal status and to re-operate it as soon as possible.
Ghanem added that the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, in coordination with the Electricity Ministry, is working on assessing the situation and starting to repair the pipeline and to restore power.
He noted that this pipeline, with a diameter of 36 inches and with a capacity of 7 million cubic meters of gas, feeds the stations of Deir Ali, Tishreen and Nasiriya in the southern region, which are currently out of service as a result of the explosion.
Ruaa al-Jazaeri
