Iraqi protesters shut down southern Nassiriya oilfield: sources

Protesters broke into Iraq’s southern Nassiriya oilfield on Saturday and forced employees to cut off electricity from its control station, taking the field offline until further notice, a security source and two oil sources said.

The oilfield produces 90,000 barrels a day (BPD) of crude. Protesters chanted “no homeland, no oil,” as they forced its closure, the sources said.

Mass protests have gripped Iraq since Oct. 1 and protesters, most of them young, are demanding an overhaul of a political system they see as profoundly corrupt and keeping most Iraqis in poverty. More than 450 people have been killed.