Page 9 - DMEA Week 46
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DMEA refininG DMEA
Baniyas refinery
resumes full
operations after blast
middle east
SyRIA’S Oil Ministry announced this week that all of the production units at the country’s Baniyas Refinery had come back into operation following an explosion in early November.
The facility, which is located in the north of the coastal tartous Province, has a nameplate capacity of around 135,000 barrels per day (bpd).
In comments reported by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the Ministry of Oil and Mineral Resources said: “All production sections in the Baniyas Refinery returned to work after the explosion in one of the reservoirs on Novem- ber 7th”.
It added that staff had “completed the unload- ing of containers in the optimisation section so that all production departments return to work and gasoline production begins after removing all the effects of the accident at the refinery.”
Syria has two refineries with a total capac- ity of around 240,000 bpd, the second being a 105,000 bpd unit in Homs.
Prior to the outbreak of civil war in 2011,
several planned refineries had received the go-ahead, including a 100,000 bpd facility at Abu Khashab backed by China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC).
With the country’s oil sector brought to its knees by the years of fighting, though, Syria must import crude from overseas to cover demand along its more heavily populated West coast.
Oil output averaged around 400,000-440,000 bpd during 2008-2010, but recent estimates put current flows at just 24,000 bpd.
In July, British Royal Marines surrounded and detained the Panamanian-flagged super- tanker The Grace 1 (now the Adrian Darya 1) on suspicion of it carrying oil to the port of Baniyas.
Following weeks of inter-governmental wrangling, the vessel was released with the promise from Iran that it would not sell its cargo to Syria. In early September, though, tehran acknowledged that the oil had been sold, but did not identify the buyer. The reflagged tanker was photographed off the coast of Syria.
Week 46 21•November•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P9
