Iraq lawmakers passed a new law that aims to crack down on oil smugglers in Iraq. 

From Reuters (via the Guardian):

“According to official reports handed to parliament, Iraq is losing roughly 105,000 oil barrels a day from the southern fields in smuggling operations,” Balu said.

“Smuggling is a flourishing industry in the south, and parliament is taking this action to put an end to such a dangerous crime that could undermine the economy,” he said.

A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2007 said that inadequate metering, reinjection, corruption, theft and sabotage robbed Iraq, which has the world’s third-biggest oil reserves, of 100,000-300,000 barrels per day.

The GAO said U.S. State Department officials and other reports estimated that about 10 to 30 percent of refined fuel was diverted to the black market or smuggled out of Iraq.

As much as 70 percent of the fuel processed at Iraq’s main refinery of Baiji, worth about $2 billion, was lost to the black market before the Iraqi army assumed control of the refinery, the Pentagon said in its June 2007 report on Iraq.

It said smugglers were a variety of criminal, insurgent, and militia groups who “engage in the theft and illicit sale of oil to fund their activities.”