IRAQ’S LARGEST OIL REFINERY has been closed following an explosion – caused by a suspected terrorist attack – yesterday.

The explosion – which killed one person and injured a further 11 – came a day after a nationwide protest, dubbed the ‘day of rage’, as thousands went to the streets to complain about food and water shortages.

The attack occurred in the northern city of Baiji, around 150 miles north of the capital Baghdad.

The Washington Post reported that the explosions were triggered by gunmen shooting their way into the facility, and added that while assaults on pipelines were relatively common in modern Iraq, assaults on actual refineries were exceptionally rare.

Officials told the New York Times that there were just two gunmen involved, and quoted Iraq’s junior oil minister as suggesting the small scale of the attack indicated possible collusion from within its staff.

“It’s very difficult to get into this refinery. They must have had some help,” Ahmed al-Shamma said.

Baiji’s overall capacity is about 290,000 barrels of output a day, though Al-Jazeera reported that the refinery was only operating at 70 per cent of its total capacity before its closure.

Its capacity is more than double the combined output of Iraq’s other two major refineries, with the country’s total output being somewhere around 550,000 barrels of crude oil every day.