Iraq’s Kirkuk oil pipeline stretches across the northern
section of the country into Turkey. Unfortunately some of the provinces it travels through like Ninewa and Salahaddin are infested with insurgents and
oil smugglers who have constantly attacked it over the last several years.
Usually these bombings only knock the pipeline out of service for a day or two
at the most. At the beginning of March 2014 that dynamic changed. Militants not
only took the pipeline out of commission, but also stayed in the vicinity, and
drove off repair crews. After several failed attempts it now appears that the
Iraqi government has given up trying to repair the line for the time being.
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| (Wikipedia) |
Iraq’s insurgents are attempting to cripple the country’s
oil industry in the north. On March
2, 2014 militants blew up the Kirkuk line in Ain al-Jahash in Ninewa
province. A week later the line was struck by two more bombs in a nearby
section. Rather than conduct a hit and run operation as they had done before, militants
stayed in the area after the explosions. Repair crews from the North Oil
Company went out to the damaged section five times to attempt to repair it and
were driven off. Even an army escort was not enough, and reportedly five
workers were either wounded
or killed. Oil Minister Abdul
Karim Luaibi said that the pipeline would be up and running again by the third
week of April, but officials at the North Oil Company told Reuters that it has
given up on trying to fix it for the time being because of the danger involved.
Insurgents have attacked the Kirkuk line for years now. For example, at the
beginning of January
and the middle
of February it was hit in Salahaddin and Ninewa respectively. Last year,
the line was attacked 54
times by militants and oil smugglers. The former are now changing tactics
by trying to keep it offline for an extended period of time. Before they might
not have been strong enough to attack and hold a stretch of the line, but now
they are testing their strength and winning right now.
Knocking the pipeline out of service is having political and
economic repercussions. First, the storage tanks in the north are now full
because of the shut down. That has forced the North Oil Company to cut back
production at the Kirkuk and Bai Hassan oil fields from around 550,000 barrels
a day to 225,000, and then send the remaining production to the Baiji and
Kirkuk refineries. Second, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad
have been in a dispute over oil policy for months. Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki recently used the power of the purse to push the matter, and stopped
sending Kurdistan its monthly share of the budget. That put immense pressure
upon the region, which depends upon the central government for up to 95%
of its budget. After weeks of threats and accusations the two sides came to
a short-term deal of having the Kurds export
100,000 barrels a day as a good will gesture. That was supposed to start
in April, but because the Kirkuk line is down and out that can’t go
forward. Iraq is an oil dependent country so every day that the pipeline is not
operating it is costing the country money that it desperately needs. It is
harming the Oil Ministry’s plans for a large increase in exports this year as
well. The northern line carries around 15% of Iraq’s total exports each year,
and is essential for Iraq to reach its goal. The insurgents are also holding up
the deal between Irbil and Baghdad, which if ever implemented could go a long
way in breaking the ice between the two sides. The militants are therefore achieving
far more than just hurting Iraq’s economy with their actions.
Now that the insurgency is back it is upping its ante
against the government. It has constantly attacked the Kirkuk pipeline, but
with its added strength it has decided to take a stand at least for now, and
keep repair crews away from it shutting down the line for more than a month
now. This is depriving the country of not only money, but also affecting an
attempt by the KRG and Baghdad to resolve its long-standing dispute over energy
policy. Because the security forces are stretched thin fighting in Anbar and
other provinces it doesn’t appear that it has the means to retake the section
of the pipeline held by insurgents. More importantly, it doesn’t have the
forces to protect the entire line even after the section is fixed meaning that
this may happen again in the future if armed factions wanted to.
SOURCES
Adel, Shaymaa, “Iraq jihadist group ISIS occupies long
sections of oil pipeline via Turkey,” Azzaman, 4/15/14
Coles, Isabel, “UPDATE 2-Kurds to export some oil through
Iraq pipeline as ‘goodwill gesture,’” Reuters, 3/20/14
Hurriyet Daily, “Iraq-Turkey oil exports via Kirkuk halted
for three weeks,” 3/19/14
International Crisis Group, “Iraq And The Kurds: The
High-Stakes Hydrocarbons Gambit,” 4/19/12
Al Mada, “Nineveh: 40 days have passed to stop Ceyhan oil
pipeline and the security forces do not protect engineers,” 4/13/14
Al-Najar, Kamaran, “Militants chase repair crews from bombed
pipeline,” Iraq Oil Report, 3/14/14
Al-Najar, Kamaran, Osgood, Patrick, Lando, Ben, “Kurdistan
‘goodwill’ exports stalled,” Iraq Oil Report, 4/2/14
Al-Sinjary, Ziad and Rasheed, Ahmed, “At “Donkey Springs”,
bombers choke off Iraq oil exports,” Reuters, 4/10/14
Van Heuveln, Ben, Lando, Ben, and Osgood, Patrick, “Under
pressure from Baghdad, Kurds offer limited exports,” Iraq Oil Report, 3/21/14
Voice of
Russia, “Oil pumping from Iraq to Turkey discontinued after pipeline blast,”
1/3/14
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