According to a report from the foreign affairs thinktank Chatham House, oil is being stolen not just from pipelines but from tank farms, export terminals, refinery storage tanks, jetties, ports, pipelines, and wellheads.
Last year, Chevron picked up a 5% stake for $3 million in Reliance Petroleums planned 27 million ton export-oriented refinery in Jamnagar in the western state of Gujarat.
The two export-oriented refineries will have the capacity to handle 800,000 barrels of oil a day, Khalid al-Buainain, Aramco's vice president for refining, told reporters at the Middle East Petroleum and Gas Conference.
American refineries export a million barrels a day of oil products.
For Thailand, the project would be a cheap and convenient way to export its dirty refineries across the border.
That produces surplus gasoline, which the refineries export to the East Coast of the United States, experts said.
The spot where about 15 pipelines crossed the Tigris had been the main link between Iraq's rich northern oil fields and the export terminals and refineries that could generate much-needed gasoline, heating fuel and revenue for Iraqis.
In January 2011, South Sudan shut down oil production, which flows from oil wells in the south through pipelines and a refinery for export in the north.
It believed its bonanza had for once put it at an advantage: instead of importing oil through the Kenyan port of Mombasa, it would build a refinery and export petroleum products to Kenya at a premium.
Venezuela depends on the United States to buy 40 percent of its exports because Gulf of Mexico refineries were designed to process low-quality Venezuelan and Mexican crudes that most refineries around the world cannot easily handle.
In the following months, I visited key refineries and export stations, in Shei'ba, Rumeilla and Bergeseeya.
