DESERT PIPE-LINE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21469, 18 April 1933, Page 9

DESERT PIPE-LINE

IRAK OIL ENTERPRISE HUGE COST INVOLVED i LONDON. April 11 The £10,000,000 pipe-line which the Irak Petroleum Company is laying to the Mediterranean is the most remarkable enterprise in the Middle La'sfc to-day, says the Palestine correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. The line runs from Kirkup to Haditha, where it divides, one section going to Haifa, 620 miles away, and the other to Tripoli. 540 miles away. Each passes through 300 miles of desert. While the Tripoli line passes under a great lava' bed which resembles a shelled area, thousands of workers ia the desert must receive water and supplies from more hospitable lands, necessitating the construction of hundreds of miles of metalled roads to carry lorries and huge construction machines. Three thousand men at present are turning the Arab village of Mafrak into a replica of Kantara in wartime. The: pipe-laying involves four main operations. The stringing of the 12iu. pipes along; the desert is proceeding at the rata of nearlv a mile a day. Each piece,of pipe, 40ft. long, weighs almost a ton*. Then the ditching is performed by a remarkable machine, which makes furrows across the desert at a rate of a mile a day until it strikes lava rock, which must be blasted. -Arabs follow, widening and deepening the ditch. Next come welders using giant apparatus. brought to white heat by a travelling generator, after which the pipes, painted and tarred, and wrapped in asphalt and canvas, are finally buried by another machine. Twelve pumping machines will be installed at various points, to force oil through the pipes. The pipe-line will enable Suez Canal dues amounting to £1,000,000 a year to be avoided. ..