Fuel crisis looks set to continue

It is 11:00 (14:00 GMT) in Baghdad's Al-Dawrah District. From one side of a petrol station a line of cars extends over about a kilometre. Drivers stand on the road next to their cars, gazing ahead to see what is happening. Around the station's forecourt teenaged boys are selling petrol out of plastic jerry cans to passing motorists who can afford black-market prices. Men pour petrol into their tanks, their heads bowed in concentration. On the far side of the petrol station, there is another queue, this time of women, sitting in line in the sun. Some of them have found shade under a crude brick shelter, fenced in with barbed wire. They are queuing for the propane gas used for cooking country-wide. They have brought battered cylinders to fill at the official price of 250 Iraqi dinars each. Some of the women have slept there overnight. They are waiting for the next tanker delivery, but no one knows when exactly that will be. As with gasoline, many of the cylinders will be resold. On the black market, a full cylinder will fetch up to 3,500 dinars. Under an economy crippled by massive unemployment, black-market selling of fuel and other supplies has become an alternative means of earning a living for the man or woman in the street. Although the country has the second largest oil reserves in the world, many important petroleum products are in short supply; as well as petrol and propane gas, these include paraffin and diesel fuel. This has resulted in frustration and resentment, a rampant black market, and queues moving at a snail's pace in the heat of the August sun. Temperatures have risen above 50 C in recent days. At the root of the problem, said Omar Alshikh of the UN Joint Logistics Centre (UNJLC) is the lack of a dependable electricity supply. Power is still intermittent in much of the country, and outages mean that crucial oil refineries suspend operations. "You might not believe it, but if the voltage drops for just one second, it can make Baghdad's Dawrah refinery shut down," he told IRIN. "And if there's a shut-down, you can't just switch it on again; it will take two or three days to get it back to normal operating conditions. And the same goes for Iraq's other big refineries." In fact, the 1.25 million-plus barrels of crude oil a day Iraq is now producing should in theory suffice to meet all its domestic needs - were it not for its inadequate refining capacity. Other problems include sabotage, tapping of pipelines, and continuing lawlessness in parts of the country, which render travel and transport hazardous. Moreover, some products, such as diesel, attract smugglers, who sell the goods to neighbouring countries where there is a high demand. Coalition forces have been cracking down on smuggling by seizing ships in The Gulf, but the practice is still draining supplies. In the case of petrol, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has often met production shortfalls by increasing imports, but nonetheless the supply has continued to be affected by major fluctuations in availability. The UNJLC says distribution is sometimes skewed, with large quantities of fuel being delivered to Baghdad while Basra is struggling to meet demand, a situation which recently prompted riots in the southern city. Paraffin is another major concern. Normally, paraffin is stockpiled during the summer to be available for heating in the winter. However, so far, there has been no stockpiling, and the UNJLC says a winter shortage is "probable to the point of near certainty". In the case of propane gas, the chief problem is that the Southern Gas Plant remains inoperative. There are plans to resume production in September. Meanwhile, the CPA is set to increase imports using a ship in The Gulf. However, due to continuing pipeline problems and a lack of trucks, the shortfall is unlikely to be resolved in the immediate future. If such shortages persist or get worse, there are fears that Baghdad could be affected by the kind of unrest that recently broke out in Basra. The Iraqi Oil Products Distribution Company is the national body with the greatest responsibility in the context of the crisis. "Things in Baghdad are much better than in Basra," Hamid Abu Sudah, the company's deputy director-general, told IRIN. "The company has its own plans to restore the distribution process in Baghdad and all over Iraq." However, when asked about future prospects, he hesitated before replying. "Progress is so gradual that we cannot be very optimistic at this stage," he said. "I am tired of this situation and we have been suffering for a long time with these long lines. We are frustrated," a woman at the petrol station in Al-Dawrah told IRIN. "I have been waiting here for five hours." Another woman said she had stocked up on gas five months ago and was angry to see people selling it on the black market. "This is not good for the Iraqi people. Iraqis are a good people - this does not represent us," she said. But the queues continue to form, and no immediate end to the fuel crisis is in sight.