JEDDAH, 13 June — A high-level source at the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources said yesterday that the “Iraqi” oil pipeline which the Kingdom seized recently could be used for transporting gas provided necessary technical changes were made to the $2.2 billion facility.
“We could use the pipeline for various purposes, including carrying gas, within the framework of our expansion projects in the oil and gas sectors,” the source told Arab News.
A large part of the Iraqi pipeline runs parallel to Saudi Arabia’s Petroline pipeline which runs from Abqaiq on the Gulf to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. A joint management of the two pipelines is feasible both economically and technically. Petroline has the capacity to carry two million barrels of oil daily.
Saudi Arabia stated Monday that it had taken over the Iraqi pipeline because Baghdad had made threats against it and had also committed aggression. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Kingdom said the Iraqi aggression “caused serious damage to the Saudi people in terms of lives and property, as well as to natural resources and the environment.” The takeover, which took effect last Thursday, includes all the pipeline’s facilities including pumping stations, storage tanks, communications system, loading facilities and a maritime terminal at the Red Sea port of Muejiz.
Iraq has protested the move. “This is a hostile action taken by Saudi Arabia against Iraq,” Baghdad’s ambassador to the UN, Muhammad Aldouri, was quoted by the Iraqi News Agency as saying in a dispatch from New York yesterday. Aldouri said Iraq would demand the “return of its rights (to the pipeline) in accordance with international law.”
But Saudi Ambassador to the UN Fowzi Shubokshi justified the Kingdom’s decision by referring to the damages caused by Iraqi aggression against his country. He said the decision was taken in the light of the UN Security Council Resolution 687, which speaks of compensation for the damages caused by the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
The source at the Saudi ministry said the pipeline would help increase energy sources in the Western Province, especially for refining and industrial purposes. The pipeline, constructed at a cost of $2.25 billion, has the capacity to transport 1.6 million barrels a day to the Red Sea. No estimate of its present value is available. It will certainly require repairs as it has been closed for over 10 years and must be linked with Saudi oil facilities in the Eastern Province.
The pipeline had been in full operation for less than a year, from September 1989 until Aug. 13, 1990, when it was shut down. It originally carried both Saudi and Iraqi crude to the Red Sea for export.
The Kingdom disconnected the pipeline and blocked both ends after the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait.
