Why you need an EV: Radicalism in Iraq Menaces the World’s most Important Oil Fields
http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/radicalism-menaces-important.html
Why you need an EV: Radicalism in Iraq Menaces the Worlds most Important Oil Fields
By Juan Cole | Jun. 24, 2014
The virtual collapse of the Iraqi army and its inability to take back any territory from Sunni forces coordinated by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria brings into question our earlier insouciance about the oil impact of ISIS advances. The Kirkuk fields in the north produce only about 670,000 barrels a day. Up to 300,000 of that production can be exported through the pipeline to Ceyhan in Turkey. These days, the pipeline is only handling about 120,000 barrels a day from Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Kirkuk fields contribute only a fraction of Iraqs 3.3 million barrel a day production. Most of it is in the south around Basra.
Until the Ceyhan pipeline was reopened in May after sabotage closed it, all Iraqs oil exports of 2.5 million barrels a day were going out through Basra in the south.
But if city after city is falling to ISIS, and they have even captured the Jordanian border towns, you have to ask yourself if they can really be kept out of Basra in the south. Seven years ago, it was common for militias to smuggle as much as $5 billion a year of Basra refined petroleum products. ISIS may want in on that bonanza, and it has the bomb-making expertise to blackmail the industry into giving him a share that is better than her present one.