In 1927 British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Standard Oil of New Jersey, and Compagnie Francaise des Petroles founded the Iraq Petroleum Company (I.P.C.), reconstituting the pre-World War I Turkish Petroleum Company. Each primary investor controlled 23.75% with the Iraqis controlling the remaining 5%. Their objective was to develop and exploit the new oil discoveries at Kirkuk, in northeast Iraq.

The problem with the Kirkuk oilfields was their distance to European markets. To avoid the tortuous journey to Basra and thence around the Arabian peninsula, I.P.C. constructed two 12inch pipelines from Kirkuk to the Mediterranean. The pipelines ran together to Haditha (22:2633 and 21:4612), on the Euphrates. They then split, with the northern line continuing via Palmyre to the port of Tripoli in the French mandate of Lebanon. The southern line ran through Transjordan to Haifa, in British Palestine.

Pumping stations were built at intervals along the routes, labeled H-1 to H-5 on the Haifa route and T-1 to T-4 on the Tripoli branch. Far more than just machinery, these pumping stations became modern waystations in the desert, complete with airstrips, housing, water, food, and fuel. Maintenance tracks followed the entire course with the pipeline itself serving as the ultimate in navigation aids.

It was along the Haifa route of the I.P.C. pipeline than HabForce advanced to the relief of Habbaniyah. Later, the 10th Indian Division under Slim used the northern route in its advance toward Aleppo during the invasion of Syria.

The Haifa pipeline closed in 1948, with the establishment of Israel. Its legacy lives on, however.

On January 18, 1991, shortly after Allied air attacks against Iraq began, Major General Yaakov Lapidot, assistant to the Israeli Minister of Defense, said on Israeli radio, "We have heard that the bases at H-2 and H-3 in western Iraq, which are the bases that threaten us, have been attacked by planes."

The following optional rules add the pipeline of the Iraq Petroleum Company to Europa.

Pumping Stations

One Allied-controlled pumping station per turn can provide attack supply for one RE of Allied units, providing the RE can trace a supply line of seven hexes or less to the pumping station. The pumping station that provides attack supply may change from turn to turn.

The supply capability of a pumping station is destroyed the first time the pumping station is occupied by an Axis unit (note that Iraqi units are not Axis units until all Iraqi cities are Axiscontrolled). Place a hit marker on a pumping station to mark its destruction.

Pumping Stations are located as shown in the table below:
Map/Hex Pumping Station
20:5104 H-5
21:4132 T-4
21:4225 T-3
21:4321 T-2
21:4516 T-1
21:4615 H-1
21:4920 H-2
21:5025 H-3
21:5131 H-4
22:2633 Hadith

Pipelines

Up to three REs per turn (of either player) may trace general supply along the IPC pipelines as if they were roads. Note that three REs is the total capacity of the pipeline system for a side, not 3 REs for each branch. Habforce (the British unit with the unit ID HF) has no special supply abilities when using these pumping station supply rules.

Units and SMPs moving along a pipeline may treat it as a "desert track" for all purposes. (See "Making Tracks on the Blue", TEM #15.)

The paths of the I.P.C. pipelines are listed below. The real pipelines run almost straight across the desert for most of their length, at an angle that is impossible to trace exactly using a straight line through the Europa hexagonal grid.

The Kirkuk Pipeline
(Hex numbers on Map 21)
3904-4004-4005-4106-4107- 42074308-4309-4409-4510-4511-4611 4612.

The Tripoli Pipeline
(Hex numbers on Map 21)
4612-4513-4516-4517-4417-4418 4419-4320-4321-4322-4323-4223 4224-4225-4126-4127-4128-4129 4130-4131.

From hex 21:4131, the Tripoli pipeline follows the transportation line from Palmyre through Horns to Tripoli, Lebanon.

The Haifa Pipeline
(Hex numbers on Map 21)
4612-4615-4716-4717-4817- 48184919-4920-5020-5021-5022- 50235024-5025-5126-5127-5128- 51295130-5131-5132-5133.

On map 20, the Haifa pipeline continues:

(Hex numbers on Map 20)
5101-5102-5103-5104-5105- 51065006-4907-4908-4808-4809-4710.

The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company

In Iran, another pipeline existed, running from the fields of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company at Maidan i Naftun, in hex 22:3808 to the refineries at Abadan. This pipeline gives benefits as a desert track, but has no pumping stations or supply benefits.

The Abadan Pipeline
(Hex numbers on Map 22)
3808-3909-4009-4110 (Ahwaz)4210-4310-4410-4511 (Abadan).

Notes. Near East supply rules allow Habforce inherent attack supply. Providing any unit with organic attack supply has dangerous implications. In "WitD" for example, there is little to keep the Allies from using Habforce as the perfect long-range attack force in the Western Desert.

In fact, although Habforce did have a large proportion of trucks (2000 men in 500 vehicles), it was far from self-sufficient. It was always somewhat dependent on rear area supply and on what supplies it could forage from the pipeline facilities. Tying Habforce to the pipeline makes for a far more realistic situation.

Note that a unit traces supply to a pumping station itself instead of along the pipeline itself. This reflects both the supplies accumulated at the station plus the ability of miscellaneous Middle East transport aircraft (Bombays, Valentias, etc.) to provide resupply missions to the landing strips at the pumping stations.

In Grand Europa, there would be even worse consequences of inherently in-supply units, but the Iraq pipelines will also allow some interesting economic conditions. Axis control of the Suez Canal, or of Haifa and Tripoli, should deprive the Allies of the oil output of Kirkuk, at least until another transfer route is built up.

Likewise, destruction of the pipeline by retreating Allied forces would seriously delay any oil benefits accruing to the Axis. The same would apply to the effect of the destruction of the Anglo-Iranian pipeline on the Persian fields. Those complications,however, will have to await another pipeline: the GRD development pipeline for the completion of Grand Europa.