Oil-Rich Iraq Suffering Fuel Shortage

[bigtree]

"Iraqi officials announced plans to double the amount of money spent to import fuel to combat the country's worst oil and gasoline shortages in years . . ."


Car bombs kill 10 in Baghdad as oil-rich Iraq struggles through fuel crisis

ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

August 17, 2006 10:56 AM
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=564789183240340516

A gallon of gasoline now sells on the black market in Baghdad for about $4.92, although the official price is 64 cents a gallon. Lines of cars at many Baghdad fuel stations stretch for several miles, and drivers sometime wait overnight to fill up their cars.

Falah Alamri, head of the State Oil Marketing Organization, said the money normally allocated by the government to buy oil products was doubled in August, to $426 million. The amount allocated for September also will be doubled, Alamri told Dow Jones Newswires.

Alamri blamed the fuel shortage on the shutdown of the Beiji refinery north of Baghdad, which produces 140,000 barrels daily. Sabotage of pipelines carrying crude from Kirkuk oil fields in the north shut down the refinery for the last four weeks, he said. It has now resumed operations.

Iraq's three main oil refineries - Dora, Beiji and Shuaiba - are working at half capacity, processing only 350,000 barrels per day compared to 700,000 barrels a day before the war.

http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=564789183240340516

[gatorboy]

1. The title of this thread is a bit off.

It's not that Iraq is suffering from a fuel shortage (from what I've heard, they have plenty at the moment).

A better title would be:

Oil-Rich Iraq Suffering From Price Gouging

[bigtree]

2. will you provide me with some documentation of this? articles?

I would very much like to add this to the discussion, but, so fsr, it's only emerged as an anecdotal reference here. And, I haven't been able to link to a reference on this.