Oil rich, gas poor: Iraq's excruciating gas lines

The lines have become a part of daily life in Erbil, a relatively peaceful and prosperous city in the autonomous Kurdish region of Northern Iraq. Over the years, it’s mostly managed to avoid the problems that have plagued the rest of the country. But that's no longer the case.

In recent weeks, the war between the Iraqi Army and a Sunni militant group has drawn in Kurdish security forces, sent tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the violence and disrupted the oil supply chain.

“The government is afraid to release too much gas, because they don’t know what is going to happen in the future,” said one old man waiting in line.

Some of the locals say they can only fill up half their tank with the allocated amount of gas – 30 liters – so they are going to go home, park their cars and then do this all again tomorrow. A few ran out of gas entirely, and manually pushed their vehicles through the line in the 110-degree heat. Another man expressed his anger that others were bribing their way to the front, while he waited for hours.

The irony of a gas shortage in a country sitting on so much oil is not lost on the residents here, and reflects a general uneasiness as Iraq teeters on the edge of a full-blown civil war.

“We're sitting on a sea of oil but it's like we are sipping it thru a straw,” said one man at the pump. “What is this?”