If Iraq Is Full of Oil, Why Is It Running Out of Gas?

The vehicles look abandoned: Hundreds of cars, bumper to bumper, snake up sidewalks and into the street, some with doors ajar or covered with sheets of cloth to block the sun. When the gas station finally opens, motorists emerge from whatever shade has been available to inch their cars closer to a pump. For many, the wait has been two days. “Maybe I get there today, maybe tomorrow,” sighs Hani Karim, 28, a Kurdish taxi driver idling near the end of a queue more than a mile and a half long. “We cannot go anywhere, so we wait.”

Ever since militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant swept through northern Iraq last month, a fuel shortage has gripped a region with some of the most abundant oil fields in the world. Dwindling supply has caused gas prices to soar from 40¢ a liter to as much as $1.70 and led to rationing and limited gas station operating hours in Kirkuk, the ethnically and religiously diverse city that sits in the middle of territory disputed by almost all of Iraq’s rival groups. Local residents who can afford to pay have the option of buying jerry cans of gas and diesel from black marketers who have cropped up along roadways.