Four companies are each to take 2 million barrels of the 8 million barrels of crude from the southern Rumailla fields tendered in late June, industry sources said on 8 July, following the closure of bids the day before. The exports are the first of oil produced since the war, and balance out at only 260,000 barrels a day (b/d) over the whole of July, compared with output in February from both the north and south of more than 2.5 million b/d. When exports can resume from the northern Kirkuk fields is uncertain due to problems on the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline. In late June, North Oil Company (NOC) director, Adel al-Kazaz, warned that urgent repairs were needed on the pipeline, and a senior oil official told Reuters on 8 July that the pipeline had been sabotaged two days earlier, making a restart appear even further off. The four companies taking the Basra crude are ChevronTexaco of the US, BP, the US' Taurustrading house and the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, although there was some confusion over whether Brazil's Petrobrashad taken this fourth cargo. The only previous tender issued since the war was for the 8 million barrels held in storage at Ceyhan and the two million at Mina al-Bakr, from pre-war output.