A report by the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center has proposed six
options for a trans-Gulf pipeline. The report said these pipelines could
extend from Iraq through several GCC states to Arabian Sea.
"This project will give a new boost to the stability of oil," GRC
security analyst Mustafa Alani said.
One option called for a 2,500-kilometer pipeline that would move through
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to the Omani capital of
Muscat on the Arabian Sea. Another proposed pipeline would end in Yemen.
The study said any overland pipeline must be protected from insurgency
attack. GRC said this would require burying the pipeline, an expensive
process.
GRC said two pipelines being examined by Gulf Arab states could
transport 6.5 million barrels of oil per day, or about 40 percent of the GCC
oil exports routed through the 50-kilometer-long Straits of Hormuz. The
construction of the first GCC pipeline, which measures 360 kilometers, was
scheduled to begin in 2007 and transport oil across the UAE to the Fujairah
emirate, located along the Gulf of Oman.
A second much larger pipeline, dubbed the Trans-Gulf Strategic Pipeline,
was still being examined and could take up to a decade to build. Such a
pipeline would have a capacity of five million barrels per day.
