🇮🇶🇸🇾 Mad Max: Fury Road, Iraq and Syria edition
 
Amateur video footage has captured dozens if not hundreds of oil-laden big rigs racing over the desert road somewhere in Iraq or Syria.

The convoy is Iraq’s makeshift solution to the Hormuz crisis as the country negotiates pipeline construction and expansion deals with its neighbors.

In the meantime, these estimated 10-15k tanker trucks have been tasked with doing the job. The grueling one-way desert trek takes 4-6 days, and is fraught with severe security and logistical risks, from highway attacks and robberies to poor road conditions, spills and collisions, exasperated by driver fatigue.

In all, energy traders estimate that the trucks deliver up to 650k metric tons of oil every month (about 1.2% of Hormuz’s lost capacity). Using the trucks is 9-13k times less efficient in terms of cargo volume, and 15-20 times more energy intensive, with a single truck carrying ‘just’ 250-275 barrels of oil, while a standard heavy supertanker carries ~2M.

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