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MEOG Commentary MEOG
Moscow for Russian companies to rehabilitate Syria’s oil and gas fields and the associated infra- structure, with the same firms likely to take the spoils if Damascus ever gets round to launching a first offshore bid round.
Russian interest in Syria is more strategic than just the country’s oil potential, which is size- able though not significant by Middle Eastern standards. access to the Mediterranean through the Russian base at Latakia has long been key to relations between Moscow and Damascus and to military support for assad.
Iran, for its part, has a vested interest in sup- porting partners who facilitate the Shia crescent which runs west from the Islamic Republic through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, providing significant strength and influence for Tehran throughout the region.
The assad administration has retained power throughout the unrest and proclaims its rule and the country’s sovereignty, though support for assad and the alawites is mainly centred in western coastal regions and myriad parties com- peting for influence across the heart of Syria.
oil outlook
In late October, Kurdish daily Rudaw quoted a US defence official as saying that US forces had commenced “reinforcing positions in the Deir
ez-Zor region, in co-ordination with our [Syr- ian Democratic Forces (SDF)] partners, with additional military assets to prevent the oilfields from falling back into the hands of ISIS or other destabilising actors.”
The SDF brought the country’s Tanak oilfield back on stream in august 2018, roughly a year after it and the US-backed yPG had taken the control of the asset from Daesh militants.
Tanak, Syria’s second-largest oilfield, is located east of the River Euphrates in the oil-rich Deir ez-Zor province, near the country’s top oil asset, the Omar field.
Tanak’s 150 existing wells are thought to be capable of 40,000 bpd of production, but infor- mation 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 biggest, 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 Daesh from mid-2011 until October 2017.™
Map illustrating Syria’s oil and gas infrastructure
Week 50 18•December•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m
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