Enab Baladi – Muwafaq al-Khouja

As the Military Operations Administration has taken control of most of Syria’s geography, except for the northeastern region where the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) hold sway, the oil arteries that fuel the Syrian economy remain in their hands. Attention now turns to the future of these oil wells and how to revive them on a national level.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011 and its transformation into armed conflict, many areas have fallen outside the regime’s control, and various warring parties have competed for the oil-rich areas, especially in eastern Syria, starting with the Syrian opposition, leading to the Islamic State group, and finally to the SDF.

Since 2017, the SDF has controlled scattered areas in northern Syria, primarily due to its partnership with the United States, which has supported it under the guise of combating the Islamic State.

With its control over northeastern Syria, which includes the provinces of Raqqa, al-Hasakah, and Deir Ezzor, the SDF has seized most of the major oil wells and refineries.

Before 2011

Before 2011, oil was one of the most important economic resources to feed the state’s public budget, and Syria was considered relatively rich in oil wells.

The oil fields in Syria produced 380,000 barrels daily, with the Homs refinery having a capacity of about 110,000 barrels per day, while the Baniyas refinery produced approximately 130,000 barrels daily, according to economic and political analyst in Middle Eastern affairs, Dr. Mohammed Saleh al-Ftayeh.

Al-Ftayeh stated to Enab Baladi that the available exportable oil was around 35% of total production until 2010, which was sufficient to cover the import bill for diesel and other derivatives that could not meet local demand from the Homs and Baniyas refineries.

He pointed out that the former regime did not disclose clear data regarding the volumes of oil imports it was executing.

Oil production has significantly decreased since the loss of the regime’s control over most wells and fields, falling to around 24,000 barrels daily, according to statements from the Director of Planning and International Cooperation at the Syrian Ministry of Oil, Muhammad Jiroudi.

Jiroudi told the Russian Sputnik agency on October 30, 2019, that oil production is “a very small part of the large quantities that remain outside control.”

Oil from Iran

Researcher Mohammed Saleh al-Ftayeh noted that shipping data from marine oil monitoring companies like “Kpler” indicated that about 7% of Iranian oil exports went to Syria, amounting to between 100,000 and 120,000 barrels daily.

Al-Ftayeh clarified that these figures are less than the production capacity of the Homs and Baniyas refineries, and they fall short of the local market’s needs in Syria.

The former regime obtained these quantities from Iran through credit lines, necessitating the search for alternatives in international oil markets today.

Syria needs to import about 200,000 barrels daily, with an estimated cost of around 14 to 15 million dollars per day, based on current market prices, according to al-Ftayeh.

Washington is tracking export networks from Iran and adding them to the economic sanctions lists issued by the US Treasury Department.

On September 25, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on 12 entities and a vessel for their involvement in shipping Iranian crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas to Syria and Lebanese Hezbollah.

Who controls oil?

The SDF controls most of the main oil sources in Syria, notably the al-Omar, al-Suwediyah, and Rmeilan fields, which serve as the primary economic source for them, contributing significantly to the financial budget of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).

In a statement to the pro-SDF North Press agency, Ahmed al-Youssef, head of the financial authority of the Autonomous Administration (the administrative umbrella of the SDF), said in September 2023 that the dependence on oil in the general budget reached 92% in 2021, while it was reduced to 76% in 2023 to rely on other resources.

The Syrian oil controlled by the SDF is sold to four parties, according to previous comments by assistant researcher at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies, Manaf Quman, to Enab Baladi.

The first part of the oil production in areas controlled by the SDF is allocated for local consumption, distributed to primitive local distillation units, which represent the smallest share of oil production in SDF territories.

The second section is sent to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which is connected to eastern Syria through land crossings and is the only outlet for the SDF outside the country.

Another part goes to areas previously controlled by the opposition in northwest Syria, often through the Aoun al-Dadat crossing in eastern Aleppo, which separates the Syrian National Army (SNA) areas from the SDF areas.

The largest portion of SDF oil goes to the former Syrian regime, which receives it through two routes: one from Raqqa and the other via river crossings connecting both banks of the Euphrates River, which separates the areas controlled by both sides in Deir Ezzor.

According to comments from the co-chair of the executive council of the Autonomous Administration, Hassan Kojar, to the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, the SDF invests in less than half of the oil wells and fields in its control areas, with its production amounting to about 150,000 barrels daily, whereas the production from these fields was around 385,000 barrels before 2011.

Resuscitation of oil wells

Economic and political expert Mohammed Saleh al-Ftayeh mentioned to Enab Baladi that Syria would need several years at a minimum to restore the oil sector to its vitality.

Since 2011, many oil refineries and fields have fallen out of the regime’s control initially in favor of the opposition, then the Islamic State, and finally the SDF, leading to significant damage due to the primitive extraction methods being used.

Al-Ftayeh added that the infrastructure of the oil sector from eastern Syria to the Homs refinery has suffered significant damage due to military operations, deliberate sabotage, or the theft of pipelines, valves, and pumping equipment components.

The heads of oil wells have also been damaged due to primitive extraction operations following 2011, leading to gas leaks accompanying the oil and weakening the extraction capabilities from the wells, according to al-Ftayeh.

The decline in oil reserves is attributed to the gas leaks from the heads of oil wells, with al-Ftayeh emphasizing the necessity of conducting the so-called resuscitation of oil wells.

This process involves injecting distilled water or various gases (nitrogen, natural gas, or carbon dioxide) into the wells, as per al-Ftayeh’s comments, noting that Syria suffers from a scarcity of these materials.

Al-Ftayeh pointed out that the well resuscitation process is costly and requires significant investments and foreign expertise.

How does the oil sector recover?

Economic and political researcher Mohammed Saleh al-Ftayeh believes that the first steps to recovering the oil sector in Syria involve conducting a wide survey of the oil wells and fields, measuring the remaining oil and gas levels, and assessing the integrity of the pumping networks and oil distribution for refineries.

The second step, according to al-Ftayeh, is to estimate the investment costs for well revival operations to study the feasibility of investments, indicating that these studies must be conducted scientifically and accurately, free from popular and media pressures.

Moreover, it must be anticipated that these studies might conclude that reviving oil wells may not be justified.