They said there was no impact on oil flows, with a current throughput of 400,000 barrels per day.

The fire, which also seriously injured five workers, broke out while a group of workers were performing welding operations near the pipeline, officials said.

Firefighters were working to extinguish the fire, which broke out in a section of the pipeline that transports crude oil from the Zubair field to nearby storage tanks.

The Ministry of Petroleum announced in a statement that the fire was caused by a gas leak in an old pumping system at the Zubair oil storage depot, confirming that one Basra Oil Company (BOC) employee was killed and four others were injured.

He added that incidents of this nature require time to be fully contained.

Some of the injured workers suffered serious burns and remain in critical condition, raising concerns that the incident could lead to more deaths, officials said.

The fire has not affected production operations, but it needs to be extinguished quickly to avoid a partial shutdown of some cargo operations, one of the officials added.