The Kirkuk-Mediterranean pipeline was a mixed 10/12-inch twin crude oil pipeline from the landlocked oil fields in Kirkuk, located in the former Ottoman vilayet of Mosul in northern Iraq, through Transjordan to Haifa in mandatory Palestine, now in the territory of Israel; and through Syria and a short stretch of what was to become the state of Lebanon to Tripoli.Iraq Petroleum Company, AN ACCOUNT OF THE CONSTRUCTION IN THE YEARS 1932 TO 1934 OF THE PIPELINE OF THE IRAQ PETROLEUM COMPANY LIMITED FROM ITS OILFIELD IN THE VICINITY OF KIRKUK TO THE MEDITERRANEAN PORTS OF HAIFA (Palestine) and TRIPOLI (Lebanon), pg. iii The oil arriving on the coast was shipped to European refineries until in 1939 the refinery in Haifa was completed, soon capable of processing the entire supply. For a few years before 1948, crude oil was transported from Tripoli to Haifa by tankers.

The pipeline was built by the Iraq Petroleum Company between 1932 and 1934, the company's first pipeline. The double pipeline split at Haditha (Pumping Station K-3) at the Euphrates river crossing.

The pipeline and the Haifa refineries were considered strategically important by the British Government, and provided much of the fuel needs of the British and American forces in the Mediterranean during World War II. After the Fall of France, for about one year of conflict in the Middle East, different parts of the pipeline system were in the hands of opposing forces. After the war, with Israel now in possession of the southern terminal, the whole southern branch was cut off from Iraqi oil deliveries and eventually abandoned. During the Suez Crisis, the northern branch was sabotaged by the Syrian government in solidarity with Egypt and remained shut down for 4 months, followed by a slow recovery to prior levels.

The pipeline was a target of attacks by Arabs during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. One of the main objectives of a joint British-Jewish Special Night Squads commanded by Captain Orde Wingate was to protect the pipeline against such attacks. Later on, the pipeline was the target of attacks by the Jewish Irgun paramilitary organisation.

+Oil production in Iraq Barrels <1927 0 1927 338,000 1928 713,000 1929 798,0001930909,0001931900,0001932836,0001933917,00019347,689,000193527,408,000193630,406,000193731,836,000193832,643,000

Construction

Iraqi oil production in 1932 was 1,000,000 to 1,200,000 bbls/a. The planned capacity of the new pipe line was 30,000,000 bbls/a. H. S. Austin, president of the Tuscarora Oil Co. and the Ajax Pipe Line Co., responsible for the Ajax Pipeline, was head of the construction work. The Ajax was a 400 mile, 65,000 bbls/day, twin 10-inch line from the Glenn Pool oil fields to the Wood River refinery complex and was completed in 1930 or 1931.

The Tuscarora Oil Company, a subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey, was not engaged in pipeline construction at the time. At the end of 1929 it had reconditioned (cleaned) its 370 or 400 mile 10-inch 25,000 bbl/day crude oil pipeline from Cooks Ferry, on the Ohio River in Western Pennsylvania to the Bayway Refinery in New Jersey and now used it to transport gasoline in the opposite direction from east to west.

World Petroleum devoted the September 1932 issue to Iraq.

IPC signed conventions regulating the transit of oil with Mandatory ...

Palenstine: 5 January 1931 Syria: 25 March 1931 Lebanon: 25 March 1931

Pipe

+ Pipe production Contractor Subcontractors Size Joints x 1000 ft Miles Sleeves x 1000 kg Comptoir Franco Belgo Sarrois Louvroil & Recquignies S.A. d'Escaut et Meuse Acieries et Usines a Tubes de la Sarre 12 76,690 2,779 526 79,870 56,878 Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd. Bromford Tube Co. Ltd. British Mannesmann Tube Co. Ltd. 12 49,140 1,768 334 49,376 36,673 Oil Well Engineering Co. Mannesmannroehren Werke Dusseldorf Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG Dusseldorf Bismarckhutte Hajduki Wielkie (Poland) 12 17,480 629 118 18,393 13,311 Oil Well Engineering Co. British Mannesmann Tube Co. Ltd. 12 4,813 177 33 5,054 3,746 Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd. Bromford Tube Co. Ltd. 12 229 9 1 0 266 British Mannesmann Tube Co. Ltd. 10 7,095 265 50 7,456 4,343 Stewarts & Lloyds 10 6,703 247 46 6,674 4,092 Oil Well Engineering Co. Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG Dusseldorf Mannesmannrohren Werke Dusseldorf 10 3,526 132 25 3,687 2,161 Oil Well Engineering Co. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. Spang Chalfant & Co. National Tube Co. 10 5,542 205 38 5,821 1,272 Oil Well Engineering Co. National Tube Co. 10 4,393 169 32 4,612 3,200 Stewarts & Lloyds 8 2,107 78 14 1,340 1,059 Total 12 148,352 5,362 1,012 152,693 110,874 Total 10 27,259 1,018 191 28,250 15,068

Logistics

Aviation

On 16 October 1932, aviation became available when one 3-engine 8-passenger Avro 618 Ten and one single-engine 4-passenger DH.50 arrived at Samakh. Both planes were purchased. In March 1933, a Farman monoplane was purchased and stationed at Homs. In March 1933, the 2 planes on the southern leg were replaced by two 3-engine 5-passenger Westland Wessex. Around May 1933 the planes were relocated to a base at Haifa.

In the early winter of 1933, the two planes based at Haifa were replaced by two twin-engine 6-passenger DH Dragon. Between October 1932 and June 1934, 6,993 passengers and 200 tons of freight were moved, over 2,971 flights, 309,000 flown miles and 3,427 flown hours.

To the Depots

+ Total employment (including contract labor) at end of quarter Quarter Class I Class II Class III 2nd 1932 92 129 1,664 3rd 1932 229 338 4,519 4th 1932 332 460 5,892 1st 1933 358 636 9,359 2nd 1933 393 850 12,441 3rd 1933 387 933 13,044 4th 1933 372 800 9,076 1st 1934 375 701 9,214 2nd 1934 357 670 10,983 3rd 1934 331 597 8,872

There was one railhead for each of the 3 legs, which became depots and sites for workshops, offices and living quarters with employment ranging from 300 to 1,200 per site. One was at Baiji, a few miles east of what would become the K-2 pumping station, supplied via Basra and transported via metre-gauge to Baghdad and standard-gauge to Baiji (map). The southern leg depot was at Mafraq on the Hejaz Railway, supplied via Haifa and for the northern leg, Homs was chosen as it was already host to several small industries.

A fourth depot was erected at Haditha, with no railhead it nonetheless became the largest of the depots, a trans-shipping point, the headquarters of the Eastern Area of the project and the base for K-3 construction personnel. A fifth depot was built at Tripoli. When construction wound down in 1934, the depots at Baiji, Mafraq and Homs were already in the process of being stripped of materials. The depot at Tripoli became the new pipe line terminal. The status of Haditha remained unclear.

From August 1932 to May 1934 a total of 207,500 tons arrived from overseas: 57,000 at Haifa, 54,000 at Tripoli and 96,500 at Basra. Rail transport to the depots amounted to 37 million metric-ton miles. An additional 200,000 tons of building materials were obtained from local sources.

From the Depots

By 15 May 1933, 801 miles, about 66%, of pipe had been laid out. This amounted to 4,750,000 ton miles of haulage of pipe, and 7,000,000 overall haulage at this point of the estimated total 23,000,000 ton miles required. Over time the distance driven from the depot to the current end of the line increased.

Communications

Between September 1932 and April 1933, one pair of telegraph and one pair of telephone wires were installed along the route. Nearly 26,000 tubular steel poles weighing 3,500 tons and 5,000 miles or 700 tons of cadmium copper wire were required. The posts were 25 feet high with a 48-inch cross arm and placed 211 feet apart (25 poles per mile), except if the terrain made this impractical. In that case some of the poles were 28 and 32 feet high as well. The river crossings were entirely different cases of special terrain.

Welding

+ Welding campaigns River crossing Start End Euphrates 3 September 1932 5 October 1932 Tigris 7 October 1932 28 October 1932 Crew Total miles Start (mile) End (mile) Start End Pipe No. 1 368 0 Tigris (53) 3 December 1932 4 April 1933 twin 127 Euphrates (149) twin 156 Jordan border (373) 19 November 1933 No. 2 260 53 127 1 December 1932 21 May 1933 twin 149 156 twin 156 Syrian border (249) 30 August 1933 No. 3 262 574 482 early December 26 April 1933 574 Haifa 25 July 1933 482 Iraq border (373) 21 October 1933 No. 4 282 Tripoli (525) Iraq border (249) November 1932 6 July 1933

Startup

+ Trade of Iraq Oil (x 1000 barrels, FY ending 31 March) 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 via Tripoli arriving 5,816 14,081 15,119 15,521 15,367 exported 4,680 14,020 15,218 15,515 15,280 ...France 4,132 10,868 13,170 14,081 11,803 ...UK 459 1,883 1,589 765 1,643 via Haifa arriving 6,193 14,532 14,783 15,348 15,185 exported 5,267 14,514 15,062 14,898 14,985 ...France 3,820 10,774 11,244 8,825 10,256 ...UK 1,277 2,825 2,198 3,604 2,417

The Tripoli line was filled starting in early June 1934 with half of the pumping stations in operation and in July there had been attained a preliminary production capacity of 20,000 bbls/day or about 50% of rated capacity. Oil first arrived at the Tripoli terminal on 14 July 1934. The French chartered tanker Henry Desprez left for Le Havre on 3 August 1934 with a first shipment of 14,600 tons and arrived on 20 August.

Later, essentially all deliveries were earmarked for the new 15,000 bbls/day refinery at Martigues (near Marseille), a haul of approximately 1900 nautical miles. and the new 25,000bbl/day Normandy Refinery in Gonfreville (Le Havre; ca 3600 nm). Martigues was the 3rd largest refinery in France at the time,. but only completed in 1935.

The first oil arrived in Haifa on 14 October 1934, seven years to the day after oil was first struck at the Baba Gurgur No. 1 well. The first shipment left Haifa on the French tanker Vendemiaire on 25 October, bound for Le Havre.

Total oil deliveries through the pipeline in calendar year 1934 were 7,096,669 barrels and in 1935 27,014,904 barrels (74,013 bbl/d or about 87% of rated capacity).

The total cost of the project was $50,000,000.

The Iraqi Petroleum Company in October 1934 published a 125-page report: The Construction of the Iraq-Mediterrnean Pipe-Line — A Tribute to the Men Who Built it. World Petroleum devoted 40 pages to the project in the February 1935 issue.

There were a total of 5 opening ceremonies: 14 January 1935 in Kirkuk, 17 January in Damascus, 19 January in Tripoli, 22 January in Haifa, and 24 January in Amman, an average rate of 0.16 ceremonies per day for the month of January.

The IPC Kirkuk operation was beaten to the punch by the Bahrain Petroleum Company, which had struck oil in 1932, but due to vastly more favourable conditions, and after sending only one shipload worth of equipment for infrastructure construction, was able to send to Japan its first load of oil on 7 June 1934.

Pumping stations

The pumping stations were named in numerical order going westwards, with the stations from Kirkuk to Haditha denoted "K" (after Kirkuk) and the subsequent ones to the Mediterranean coast at Haifa denoted "H" (after Haifa) and those to Tripoli denoted "T".Iraq Petroleum Company, AN ACCOUNT OF THE CONSTRUCTION IN THE YEARS 1932 TO 1934 OF THE PIPELINE OF THE IRAQ PETROLEUM COMPANY LIMITED FROM ITS OILFIELD IN THE VICINITY OF KIRKUK TO THE MEDITERRANEAN PORTS OF HAIFA (Palestine) and TRIPOLI (Lebanon), map6 H-4 and H-5 are in Jordan, T-2, T-3, T-4 in Syria, all others on Iraqi soil.

Sketched maps can be found in except for K-1 and K-2. Stations for which exact coordinates are given are clearly identifiable by the remains seen through Google Maps as of 2025.