Try this Google News search - zero results right? The terrorists have had a field day disrupting oil transport since 2003. See the Iraq Pipeline Watch: Attacks on Iraqi pipelines, oil installations, and oil personnel for the sad history. Also see the Oil and Gas Industry Terrorism Monitor.
Given the critical importance of protecting Iraq’s infrastructure from Al Qaeda or Sunni rejectionist attack, why has there been virtually no analysis or news reportage? Well, credit to The Australian and The Times for a report.
The US Army Corps of Engineers began building this $US30million Pipeline Exclusion Zone (PEZ) between Kirkuk and Baiji last July, and will finish next month. It has already reduced dramatically the number of attacks by Sunni insurgents who have been waging war over the past four years - not against US troops or Shi’ites but against the oil industry.
As a result, that industry is displaying unmistakable signs of recovery for the first time since the US invasion of 2003.
Exports have risen almost to pre-war levels, and with Iraq sitting on 113 billion barrels of proven reserves - the third-largest in the world - that is welcome news not just for Baghdad but for a world reeling from record oil prices.
The PEZ is only one measure taken by the US and Iraqi authorities to secure the pipelines. They have also replaced Sunni and Shia soldiers with more aggressive and trustworthy Kurds, and removed the 3rdStrategic Infantry Battalion which was, say US army officers, “deeply corrupt”.
Since August there have been just two attacks, both in areas where the PEZ was unfinished.
The results of this improved security are startling. The pipeline to Turkey was operational just 17 days in the first seven months of last year, and every day but five in the last quarter.
0 Responses to “Iraq: Progress on pipeline protection”