The roots of Energy Infrastructures Ltd. (PEI) and its subsidiary Petroleum Products Pipeline Ltd., go way back to the 1930s during the British Mandate in Israel. The British Government, which was governing Israel at the time, saw economic and strategic importance in the Port of Haifa, particularly as a point of departure for the export of crude oil and distillates to Europe. In 1931, The British High Commissioner in Israel signed an agreement with the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) to transfer crude oil from Iraq via Jordan to Haifa, a distance of about 1,100 km, in order to regulate the rights of the company in Palestine (Israel).
Approximately three years later, in 1934, IPC completed the laying of a pipeline between Kirkuk in Iraq and Haifa. With the approval of the British Government, IPC erected storage facilities next to the pipeline network and ports for crude oil and distillates which are still in use today.
During the 1950s and the Arab boycott of Israel, a government-owned company called Petroleum Services which, at the end of the 1950s when the British stopped running the Haifa Refineries, became the legal successor of the rights and assets of the Iraq Petroleum Company, IPC.
Over the years, with the economic development of Israel, the need for a fuel economy grew and a fuel infrastructure in the center and south of Israel was developed, rapidly becoming central to Israel's economy and industry. In order to meet the changing requirements the company increased its storage capacity, expanded its transportation lines and established new fuel terminals, ports and distribution terminals.
In the 1990s, as befits the status of a leading infrastructure company in the fuel and energy economy of Israel, the company's name was changed to Petroleum & Energy Infrastructures Ltd., since when it has been running in its current form till today.
This historic cartogram illustrates the route of the oil pipeline from Kirkuk, Iraq to Haifa.
