Territorialities of a Transnational Oil Flow
International audience ; This paper explores the territoriality of the Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline), a cross-border pipeline that carries Aramco crude from the wells of its sister concession in eastern Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean. Through the case study of Tapline, I argue that territorial organization is a necessary force of production for international concessionary enterprises. Given that the flow of oil depended on the continuity of the Aramco operation, the pipeline company was committed to negotiating the interests the sister-oil concession and those of the producing state. As the northern boundaries of the sister Aramco concession corresponded with that of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Tapline's convention agreement with Saudi Arabia extended infrastructural provisions in relation to the Kingdom's aspirations to settle its tribal population and secure its northern boundary. The pipeline's large-scale technological system materialized thus a territory with its qualities and frictions opening in its turn a space that could be incorporated into forms of political rationalities.