Iraq Abandons Hope of Using Oil Pipeline Shut Down by Syria

The Iraqi government has abandoned hope of using its oil pipeline through Syria, which the Damascus regime closed in mid-1982, a senior Iraqi official said in an interview released Saturday.

“I consider the Syrian pipeline abandoned, because we will not need it after the opening of the new oil outlets through Saudi Arabia and Turkey,” First Deputy Prime Minister Taha Yassin Ramadan said in an interview with the London-based magazine Al Dastour, to be published Monday.

Syria slashed Iraq’s export revenues when it closed the 1.4-million-barrel-a-day line, apparently acting in solidarity with Iran, which is Iraq’s foe in the Persian Gulf War. The fighting has also shut off Iraq’s normal export route through the gulf. The Iraqis, however, have been building new pipelines elsewhere.

“Iraq has decided to transfer the course of its oil exports through safe outlets, away from the effects of the gulf war,” Ramadan said.

The Baghdad regime plans to double its export capacity by the end of this year to 2 million barrels a day through completion of a 500,000 barrel-a-day line via Saudi Arabia and a 50% expansion of a line via Turkey to 1.5 million barrels a day, according to Oil Minister Kassim Ahmed Taki.