MOSUL OIL

Grey River Argus, 10 December 1938, Page 11

MOSUL OIL

GREATEST PIPE LINE. In the past, across the Syrian Desert, marched the armies of conquest, pillage, and slaughter. But only a few years ago, came another conquering army—the conquering army of science and invention the army of the Empire of Oil, (says Robert H. Neil). Perhaps the most significant event in the Near East for a decade was the completion and formal opening in January, 1935 ,of the world’s greatest pipe-line, from the Mosul oilfields in Northern Iraq across 600 miles of desert and mountain to the Mediterranean. Many years of planning and negotation, 30 months of actual construction, and nearly £l2500,000 were required for the project, and it is beyond doubt the most international in character of all great engineering feats. The pipe-line crosses four countries —Iraq, Transjordania, Syria, and Palestine, while the Iraq Petroleum Company, which holds the Mosul concessions and built the pipeline, includes British, French, Dutch and American interests. The two ports at which the pipeline debouches are Tripoli, in Syria,, and Haifa, in Palestine. Thousands of desert Arabs were steadily and profitably employed during the construction of the pipe-line, and to-day many are permanently attached to the pumping stations as labourers. The ceremonies attending the formal opening of the pipe-line began at Kirkuk, on January 14, 1935, when King Ghazi, of Iraq, son of the late King Feisul, opened a valve and sent the crude oil on its way. There were present also many British and French notables. On the map the pipe-line resembles a wishbone, with the bifurcation at Haditha. The total length of pipe laid is 1176 miles. .Pumping stations are located over the system at intervals of from 50 to 100 miles. Suitable quarters and an adequate water supply have been provided for the permanent staff at each of. the 11 pumping stations. In addition to air patrols, • which watch for leaks and desert marauders, the stations are in constant communication by telegraph or ’ wireless with the Iraq police, the French military authorities at Palmyra, the Transjordan desert patrols, and the Royal Air Force at Amman and Haifa. The pipe-line itself consists of over 150,000 pipes electrically welded together, and buried a yard deep, afte;r having been wrapped in a winding sheet of asbestos felt. ft crosses two rivers east of the Svrian Desert—the Tigris and the Euphrates —and two west of it the ©routes and the Jordan; it runs through the fertile valley of Palestine, over the rugged, inhospitable mountains of Transpordania, and down the verdant slopes of the mountains of the Lebanon; it passes by the wild primitive Kurdish villages in Iraq; the cultivators of the Orontes Valley; the modern Jewish settlers in the’ plains of Esdraelon and Acre, as well as the Bedouin tent-dwellers and the nomad graziers of the desert* In its gradient journey westward t o the Mediterranean, the oil line ascends to a height of 2500 feet above sea level, and descends mto the Valley of the Jordan, to a depth of 885 feet below the level of the sea. Here is situated the lowest pumping station in the world.