PIPE LINE OPENED

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 95, 16 January 1935, Page 9

PIPE LINE OPENED

- -fl Great Undertaking in Iraq KING GHAZI TURNS TAP (British Official Wireless.) (Received January 15. 5.5 p.m.) Rugby, January 15. The pipe line connecting the Mesopotamian oilfields witl) the Mediterranean was formally opened at Kirkuk to-day by tlie King of Iraq. The pipe line has been constructed by the International Iraq ‘Petroleum Company, containing British, French, American and Dutch interests. There are t2OO miles of pipe laid at a cost of £10.060.000, mostly across a barren and waterless desert. The pipe line runs in duplicate from Kirkuk to Haditha, where it differentiates, the southern branch leading tq Haifa in Palestine and the northern branch to Tripoli on the Lebanon coast. A fleet of aeroplanes, specially chartered for the occasion, flew to Kirkuk from Bagdad for the inaugural ceremony, states a Bagdad cable. King Ghazi, of Iraq, after a speech in Arabic and in English, set the plant in motion, turning a tap and starting the oil flowing to the Mediterranean coast through five countries. Fourteen aeroplanes and a special train conveyed distinguished visitors from Bagdad to see King Ghazi start the stream of oil on its way to the Mediterranean by pipe line, the capa-. city of which is four million tons annually. The reason for building the line was to avoid the payment of Suez Canal dues by the tankers by which the oil has hitherto been shipped.