| This study examines where and why oil pipelines have been built in the Middle East and the geopolitical conditions under which they have been operated. Preliminary discussion centers upon extra-regional forces and developments that have had a major impact upon pipeline construction and operation. These include technical advances in the pipeline and tanker industries; geographical shifts in Middle Eastern oil markets; discovering of new, large oil deposits in other world regions; and changing tanker fees and oil prices.; Oil pipeline construction and operation in specific Middle Eastern countries is analyzed in detail. Earlier pipelines were built between the oil fields of Iraq and Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean coast. Their purpose was to shorten the shipping distances to European markets and to avoid two transportation bottlenecks, the Persian/Arabian Gulf and the Suez Canal. However, these international pipelines proved vulnerable to general Middle Eastern geopolitical conditions and to stress between western oil companies and oil producing countries on the one hand and oil transit countries on the other hand. Oil pipelines built since World War II have been entirely, or for the most part, within the national territories of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and Iran in order to avoid international complications.; The final portion of the study focuses upon specific factors in pipeline construction and operation, including physical geography; ethnic and religious groups; boundary disputes; political and ideological differences; and political and military crises. Among conclusions reached, economic forces were largely responsible for oil pipeline construction prior to the first Suez Canal crisis of 1956. But the pipelines built then proved extremely sensitive to the changing tides within the Middle East. Pipeline construction since 1956 has been prompted more by security considerations and by such major international upsets as the closure of the Suez Canal and the Iraq-Iran Gulf War of 1980-88. |
