A fleet of specially chartered aeroplanes carried guests over the 150-mile journey from Bagdad to Kirkuk for the opening ceremony of the 1,200 miles pipe-line from the oilfields here to Haifa, Palestine, which was performed by King Ghazi this morning.
The British Ambassador, Sir Francis Humphreys, piloted his own small aeroplane, carrying with him as passenger Earl Stanhope. Other guests arrived by a special train which had been fitted with sleeping cars and restaurant cars, and still others collected from all parts of Iraq.
King Ghazi spoke in both English and Arabic just before opening the tap which started the oil flowing on its long journey to the coast. He emphasised the importance of friendly co-operation between the company operating the pipe-line and his Government.
BRITISH WORKMANSHIP
The Kirkuk station, which is the first of twelve pumping-stations along the pipe-line, is one of the most modern and most efficient in the world. It is equipped with the latest machinery of almost entirely British workmanship.
From Kirkuk a double line takes the oil across the bed of the Tigris and the Euphrates to Hadithe, a distance of 156 miles. Thence the line forks, one great steel tube stretching out through Syria and the Lebanon to its northern terminus at Tripoli and the other crossing the rocky volcanic stretches of the Transjordan to Palestine and its southern terminal at Haifa.
Some 1,000 miles of its way lies through barren desert where roads were unknown and water non-existent for the greater part of the year. In the high deserts of Syria the track rises to 3,000 feet or more above sea-level while in other places it sinks over 200 feet below the level of the sea. For a hundred miles in the Transjordan the hard volcanic rock had to be blasted and drilled before a trench could be made to bury the great steel tube.
Workers drawn from every country through which the line passes were hampered by extremes of heat and cold, blinding dust storms that lasted sometimes for days on end, and rains that turned the ground they were working into impassable swamps. Transport problems were innumerable. One section of the line had to be laid between railheads almost 500 miles apart, while at another point the nearest means of communication were separated by over 400 miles.
Sixteen countries, including Britain, have taken part in the construction of this great line, which was built by the Iraq Petroleum Company. It is estimated that 4,000,000 tons of oil will ultimately be sent down every year.
