US embassy cable - 03KUWAIT1825

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 KUWAIT 001825 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE ALSO PASS USAID/W 
STATE PLEASE REPEAT TO IO COLLECTIVE 
STATE FOR PRM/ANE, EUR/SE, NEA/NGA, IO AND SA/PAB 
NSC FOR EABRAMS, SMCCORMICK, STAHIR-KHELI, JDWORKEN 
USAID FOR USAID/A, DCHA/AA, DCHA/RMT, DCHA/FFP 
USAID FOR DCHA/OTI, DCHA/DG, ANE/AA 
USAID FOR DCHA/OFDA:WGARVELINK, BMCCONNELL, KFARNSWORTH 
USAID FOR ANE/AA:WCHAMBERLIN 
ROME FOR FODAG 
GENEVA FOR RMA AND NKYLOH 
DOHA FOR MSHIRLEY 
ANKARA FOR AMB WRPEARSON, ECON AJSIROTIC AND DART 
AMMAN FOR USAID AND DART 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: EAID, PREF, IZ, WFP 
SUBJECT:  TFIZ01:  FUEL SITUATION IN SOUTHERN IRAQ 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  Concern about the supply of cooking gas and related 
fuels for the southern region of Iraq continues.  The Basrah 
refinery, the reported primary source of LPG cooking gas for 
most of the south, is damaged and not expected to be on line 
for at least a month.  An effort to provide bottled gas from 
Kuwait to Umm Qasr, while successful, given the logistical 
challenges, demonstrated the unfeasibility of launching a 
wider effort for the rest of the southern region. 
Meanwhile, reports from several governorates in the south 
describe dwindling domestic supplies from a couple weeks to 
three or four days to none. 
 
2.  There are increasing reports of the removal of urban 
tree stocks in several locations as well as reports of 
increased incidence of burns attributed to people attempting 
to cook with firewood and other fuels with which they are 
unfamiliar.  Planning efforts to acquire LPG from outside 
the area are hindered by a concurrent lack of appropriate 
trucking to move the gas.  End Summary. 
 
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BACKGROUND TO COOKING GAS IN IRAQ 
--------------------------------- 
 
3.  In Iraqi homes, the primary fuel for cooking in most 
Iraqi homes is with Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG), which 
consists of 75 percent propane and 25 percent butane (Note: 
this combination is reportedly used because it is more 
stable than pure propane in the extreme heat of Iraq.  End 
note.)  Before the war, families regularly traded-in empty 
bottles for filled bottles at their local gas stations, 
which are located throughout most communities.  The average 
bottle contained 12 kilograms (KGs) of LPG lasting 
approximately 2 months.  These stations were supplied by 
trucks that regularly brought newly filled bottles, taking 
the empties back to bottling plants for 
refilling/recharging.  An undetermined number of recharging 
plants are located around the region; one of the larger 
plants is reported to be in Al Kut in Wasit Governorate. 
LPG for the south was supplied to these recharging plants by 
truck from the refinery in Basrah.  Further north, the LPG 
was reportedly supplied from Baghdad, reaching Baghdad by 
pipeline from the Al Baigi refinery in the north. 
 
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LACK OF COOKING GAS 
------------------- 
 
4.  In its earliest meetings with the newly-formed town 
council in Umm Qasr in mid April, the DART first heard of 
the need for cooking gas.  Around the same time, the first 
reports came in from International Medical Corps (IMC), from 
its assessments of health care centers in the southern 
region, of growing incidences of burns caused by people 
attempting to cook over open fires -- a practice with which 
most urban Iraqis are unfamiliar.  The Umm Qasr city council 
members complained that people were beginning to trim and 
cut down the few trees in the city, and the evidence of this 
practice is being noted with growing frequency.  At the 
Infrastructure meeting in the Humanitarian Operations Center 
(HOC) on 28 April, a returning assessment team reported that 
people were cutting down the trees in the medians on Umm 
Qasr's parkways. 
 
5.  In An Nasiriyah, the Irish NGO, GOAL, described the 
dwindling cooking fuel situation as "dire".  On 1 May, GOAL 
reported that propane supplies in An Nasiriyah were 
virtually "non-existent" and that kerosene supplies are 
"perilously low".  GOAL also reported on 23 April that a 
number of people looted a propane factory in An Nasiriyah by 
breaking the pipes and manually opening the valves to fill 
bottles.  As a result of this looting, a lethal mixture of 
sulphur and vapor remains in the tank, which could easily 
explode.  Another incident of looting occurred on 29 April, 
when looters again manually broke open a main pipeline 
valve.  This time, the pressurized pipeline exploded, 
killing two people and seriously burning two more. 
 
6.  Coalition forces in Al Kut reported a near-riot during 
an attempt to distribute the remaining bottles at a facility 
there.  Save the Children reported that during their small- 
scale gas bottle distribution in Umm Qasr (see below) people 
drove in from as far as Basrah asking to buy gas.  The DART, 
in its most recent assessment report from Anbar Governorate, 
noted similar problems. 
 
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DONATED BOTTLED GAS FROM KUWAIT 
------------------------------- 
 
7.  In response to the request from the Umm Qasr city 
council, actions by the DART led to a joint effort by 
Salvation Army, who procured and transported bottles of gas 
donated by the Government of Kuwait to Umm Qasr, and Save 
the Children, who provided organization assistance for the 
bottles' distribution through public distribution system 
agents in the town.  In addressing the needs of the 30,000- 
plus people of Umm Qasr, this distribution was highly 
successful.  Relying on community participation, this 
distribution is one of the first distributions in the south 
not marred by out-of-control crowds and looting of supplies. 
However, the associated high costs (over USD 1,200 for each 
of the seven trucks needed to transport the 4,300 bottles 
from Kuwait) and excessive person-days required to implement 
this effort (nearly two weeks of full-time organizational 
work), also demonstrated its limited feasibility for broader 
application in the region. 
 
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ASSUMED BROAD-SCALE NEEDS 
------------------------- 
8.  A request was sent out earlier this week to Coalition 
forces, NGOs, and town councils asking for current estimates 
of fuel and related fuel transport needs.  So far, no 
responses to this request have come back.  At this time, the 
region's only town council known to have a unit specifically 
dedicated to fuel is in An Nasiriyah.  GOAL has assigned one 
civil engineer fulltime to this unit.  Other DART partners 
have been encouraged to support the establishment of similar 
units in the towns where they work. 
 
9.  A recent report by the GOAL engineer estimates the daily 
need in the area of An Nasiriyah at approximately 11,000 
bottles per day for a population estimated at approximately 
800,000.  By extension, the daily need for the four southern 
governorates of Basrah, Thi Qar, Missan, and Muthana, is 
estimated to be in the area of 68,000 bottles per day for a 
population of five million people.  Include the next six 
adjoining governorates to the northwest, and this number 
doubles.  GOAL, in its report, states that with some minor 
repairs they could get some of the damaged bottling plants 
back into basic operation and if coupled with production 
from existing plants and if bottles were only three-quarters 
filled, An Nasiriyah facilities could possibly meet 
immediate local demand.  The problem, however, is lack of 
gas to fill the bottles.  During the 28 April Infrastructure 
Meeting at the HOC, it was reported that the Basrah 
Refinery's facilities for LPG are damaged and may not be 
operational for another month. 
 
-------------------------------- 
ACQUIRING OUTSIDE SOURCES OF LPG 
-------------------------------- 
 
10.  Unconfirmed reports state that Al Baigi's LPG 
facilities are operable and serving the north.  Previously, 
LPG was piped to Baghdad where it was put in tankers and 
trucked as far south as Al Kut where there is a major bottle 
manufacture and charging plant.  The boundary between the Al 
Baigi system and the LPG supply system from Basrah is 
unclear, but it is a reasonable assumption that distribution 
from this northern system could alleviate a portion of the 
problem.  The Kuwaiti National Oil Company has indicated its 
ability and willingness to provide LPG to the south.  A 
private contracting company also has offered to procure LPG 
and bring it by barge into Umm Qasr.  However, in all 
instances there are problems related to trucking.  The 
Kuwaitis have stated that they will not allow their LPG 
tankers to travel into Iraq because of their limited supply 
of trucks and the instability in Iraq.  The Kuwaiti National 
Oil Company indicated, however, that they would allow Iraqi 
trucks into Kuwait for filling, if they passed routine 
Kuwaiti safety inspections.  In response to this offer, 
efforts were made to locate Iraqi LPG tankers. In the course 
of this effort, a larger problem is the general absence of 
any significant numbers of Iraqi fuel transport trucks of 
any kind. 
 
--------------------------------------- 
DIFFICULTIES IDENTIFYING TRUCKING STOCK 
--------------------------------------- 
 
11.  Determining the whereabouts and status of Iraq's fuel 
trucking stock has been frustrating and confusing. 
Coalition trucks are reportedly distributing diesel to gas 
stations around the country, but the scope of this effort is 
not currently understood.  Early responses to a Request for 
Information (RFI) to Coalition forces around the country 
indicates that Coalition units also are looking for trucks. 
No reports of identified stocks 
have been received in response to the RFI. 
 
12.  GOAL located only three trucks in the whole of An 
Nasiriyah, only two of which are operable (Note: GOAL 
further calculated a need for at least 20, 36,000 liter 
trucks to meet local demand.  End Note.)  A Mercy Corps 
International assessment team reported from Al Kut, where 
there was thought to be a large stock of gas trucks, that 
all the trucks had been taken back to the central trucking 
yards in Dowrah, near Baghdad, and to Al Hillah.  However, 
Coalition forces report that there are trucks in Al Kut and 
they planned to take a representative from Salvation Army 
there on 28 April, to try and find and assess the trucks. 
There is no information on the outcome of that effort, but 
GOAL asked for clarification on a rumor they heard of eight 
tankers in route from Al Kut to Kuwait.  Concurrently, an 
unconfirmed, verbal report from the HOC says the truck yards 
in Dowrah are empty or looted. 
 
13.  According to the United Nations Joint Logistics Center 
(UNJLC), much of the national trucking stock has been 
"privatized" by the drivers, repainted, and put into private 
use.  To further confuse things, Save the Children reports 
that during their distribution, a driver with a full truck 
of bottled gas showed up in Umm Qasr trying to sell the gas. 
Who the driver worked for or where the gas came from is not 
known. 
 
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CONCLUSION 
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14.  A brief informal meeting was held on 28 April between 
representatives from the UNJLC Fuel Planning Cell, the U.S. 
Corps of Engineers, and the DART.  When all the accumulated 
bits of information were reviewed in their entirety there 
was consensus that the problem may be far more serious than 
some had earlier considered.  All agreed that the problem, 
if not quickly addressed, could have significant negative 
impact on the environment, public health, and society-at- 
large (e.g., exacerbating social unrest).  To address the 
problem, increased efforts are required on a number of 
fronts including: 
 
--  Raised prioritization for bringing LPG production 
facilities in Basrah into operation; 
 
--  A more robust effort on the part of Coalition forces to 
locate and inventory remaining Iraqi national trucking 
stock, with particular attention to finding remaining LPG 
tankers; 
 
--  An accelerated effort at the town council level to 
determine immediate emergency fuel trucking needs and 
related storage capacities, and to plan for internal 
distribution; and 
 
--  An effort to determine the viability of contracting 
outside trucking (e.g., Saudi Arabia) coupled with 
importation of LPG. 
 
JONES