Syria to import fuel as shortages continue

Syria this week said that it would resort to importing more crude oil as US sanctions on Iran continue to cause supply issues.

Speaking to Parliament, Prime Minister Hussein Arnous did not indicate the planned source of extra supplies, but he noted that 1.2mn tonnes (8.8mn barrels) had been imported since mid-2020, adding that the imported crude plus other petroleum products had cost around $820mn.

“We have become dependent on imported oil and we have used up foreign currency in large amounts to pay for petroleum products,” he said.

Syria is home to proven reserves of 2.5bn barrels of oil and 241bn cubic metres of gas, with Arnous estimating current output running at just 20,000 barrels per day (bpd). Before civil war broke out in 2011 production was around 400,000 bpd. Numbers for gas are less clear, but the most recent verified data, from 2015, showed output of 7.73mn cubic metres per day of dry natural gas, and more recent estimates are just 3.4 mcm per day.

The prime minister noted that around 400,000 bpd had been lost from fields in the north-east of the country that are now under the control of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Force (SDF).

The SDF brought the Tanak oilfield back on stream in August 2018, roughly a year after it and the US-backed YPG took the control of the asset from IS fighters.

Tanak, Syria’s second-largest oilfield, is located east of the River Euphrates, near Omar, which is the country’s top oil asset. Tanak’s 150 existing wells are thought to be capable of 40,000 bpd of production, but information about the asset’s condition has not been forthcoming since the SDF retook the field in November 2017. Local media outlet Zaman Al Wasl quoted sources at the time as saying that the oil from Tanak was being supplied to the Syrian regime.

The SDF has held control over the country’s largest oilfields, including Omar, the largest, Ward, Kewari, Jafra, Jarnuf, Azrak, Kahar, Afra, Sueytat and Galban. Omar had been producing around 30,000 bpd prior to the Syrian Civil War, but was in the hands of IS from mid-2011 until October 2017.