...Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani on 17 November said that the twin oil pipelines linking the northern city of Kirkuk to the port of Yumurtalik in southern Turkey were no longer useable because of repeated insurgent attacks and poor maintenance.
The pipelines' current status is likely to have widespread political repercussions. Firstly, it limits the already constrained means available to the central government to raise the oil revenues on which it depends for patronage, strengthening the security forces and co-opting its political opponents. Secondly, the resulting need to rely on the country's remaining working pipelines that connect to the southern port of Basra will increase the bargaining power and influence of Shia Arab militias who control areas in the south through which the pipelines pass; this will heighten the significance of Basra and also the current dispute between Shia Arab parties over who controls the south's oil resources. Thirdly, the central government's threat to curtail Kurdish oil exports as part of the continuing dispute over who controls the Kurdistan Region (KR)'s oil resources will be given more weight (though the pipeline's status will also provide the KR government with both an incentive and a convenient excuse to consider building its own pipelines across the KR, thereby enhancing its autonomy from the central government). Sunni Arab insurgents are likely to continue targeting pipelines across the country on a regular basis as a means of pressuring the Shia Arab-dominated central government....
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