'I thought the wells would have been rigged to go off'

Lieutenant Toby "Troopy" Rider was loath to admit any outward sign of nervousness when he went in to check for the explosive booby traps which Allied forces believed were planted throughout the gas and oil plants in the south Rumaila oil fields.

"Go on, you told me you had sweaty palms," his sergeant piped in.

It would have been an understandable reaction for the 23-year-old who, with one other watch soldier, was sent in first to try to disable any bombs designed to turn the plant into an enormous fireball with a searing reach of 2km.

While half a dozen well-heads were set on fire by Iraqi troops or workers, no mines or booby traps were found on the six gas and oil separation plants (GOSPs) in the area. The black choking smoke from the burning well-heads, which now forms a permanent backdrop to the area, serves only as a reminder of the massive environmental damage that could have been wreaked.

The Rumaila oilfields, which produce up to 60 per cent of Iraq's "black gold" – approximately 1.1 million barrels a day – are seen as key to the future prosperity of the country. Mindful that Saddam Hussein ordered the torching of Kuwaiti wells following the previous Gulf conflict, coalition forces were determined to prevent such destruction this time.

While US Marines from the 5 Regimental Combat Team were sent in to seize the GOSPs, it fell to British troops to check them for suspected explosives. While the Royal Irish Regiment was sent in to secure the sites, bomb disposal teams from the Royal Engineers, counter-terrorist specialists from the 11 EOD Royal Logistics Corps and a team of oil experts had the task of ensuring plants were safe.

As troop commander, Lt Rider went in first to the largest of the GOSPs, 3 Romeo, with a soldier to protect him against any snipers. He spent four painstaking hours scanning a myriad pipes covering an area the size of a tennis court, looking for disturbed ground, trip wires, any new or green army equipment on the otherwise rusty pipes, the tiny prongs of mines or the antennae of remote-controlled devices. Only when he had completed this first task could the gas and oil supply be cut off to prevent any major explosion.

"You have to think like the person who might have mined the plant. If you think like him you should be able to think where he would have put things. Of course, you do feel nervous when you come into a site like this, but that makes you cautious. I can focus exactly on what I am doing and forget about everything else. You have got to have confidence in what you are doing," he explained with a smile.

It is unusual for the Royal Engineers to be assisted by the Royal Logistics Corps. More used to working in counter-terrorist work and in Northern Ireland, their specialist help was brought in because of the fear that radio-controlled explosives had been laid.

Staff Sergeant Paul Rigg, of the 11 EOD RLC, said: "I was very surprised. I would have thought they would have been rigged to go off when US and British troops went in. If it had blown it would have been catastrophic."