Tentacles of the Petrostate: Adding Pipelines to the study of civil war
P3-S57-2
Presented by: Yaron Weissberg
Previous research on the conflict risks associated with oil and gas has largely focused on extraction regions, overlooking the critical role of transportation infrastructure in the oil-conflict nexus. This omission is surprising given the prominent role that pipelines have played in both international and civil conflicts. This paper introduces GeoPIPE, a new geo-spatial and historical dataset that integrates oil and gas production and transportation data. The dataset ranges from 1945 to 2020 and covers all countries outside the OECD. By employing a novel method called pipeline-field-links (PFLs), GeoPIPE combines three publicly available datasets to provide a more comprehensive understanding of petroleum-related conflict dynamics. The dataset not only incorporates the previously neglected transport dimension but also enhances the temporal accuracy of existing field data. GeoPIPE thus enables researchers to better identify oil and gas fields of high strategic importance and to determine the type of fuel produced at specific points in time. An initial analysis reveals that pipelines are just as likely as extraction fields to be targeted by terrorist attacks. However, a significant distinction emerges regarding the type of fuel involved: only oil fields and oil pipelines appear to be primary targets for such attacks. These results demonstrate the importance of pipelines for understanding the oil-conflict nexus and offer new insights into the mechanisms driving petroleum-related violence.
Keywords: Spatial data, Pipelines, Extraction, Petrostates, Terrorism