Bahrain Days From Extinguishing Oil Well Blaze UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: April 16, 2008 DUBAI - An oil well fire that started in Bahrain on Saturday could take days to extinguish as the country waits for specialist fire-fighting equipment to arrive, a spokesman at Bahrain's state oil company Bapco said on Tuesday. Output from Bahrain's onshore 35,000 barrel per day (bpd) Awali field was unaffected by the fire, which broke out during routine maintenance, said Bapco's acting manager of public relations Mohammed Shehab. Bahrain has called in US specialist fire fighting service Wild Well Control to extinguish the fire, Shehab said. The company was bringing fire-fighting equipment by road from the United Arab Emirates and the equipment was due to arrive in the next two days, Shehab said. A truck hit a wellhead at the oilfield on Friday, causing a gas leak. The gas ignited around midday on Saturday, Shehab said. The high pressure of the gas leak made the fire difficult to extinguish, he added. The gas was being used for reinjection at the field to boost oil output. There were no injuries and other wells at Awali continued pumping, he added. The Awali field, discovered in 1932, was the first oil find on the Arab side of the Gulf. Bahrain is a small oil producer. Aside from Awali, Bahrain also receives around 150,000 bpd of crude from Saudi Arabia, its share of output from the Abu Saafa oilfield. (Reporting by Simon Webb, Editing by Jacqueline Wong) REUTERS NEWS SERVICE