Page 5 - MEOG Week 31.indd

MEOG COMMENTARY MEOG

of US military forces and the SDF. oil from Tanak was being supplied to the Syrian Oil and gas assets and
Lawyer James Cain appears to have been key regime. infrastructure in Syria
to garnering political backing, leveraging con- The SDF has held control over the country’s
tacts and experience from his time as US ambas- largest oilfields, including: Omar, the largest;
sador to Denmark. Cain currently works for US Ward, Kewari, Jafra, Jarnuf, Azrak, Kahar, Afra,
law firm Kilpatrick Townshend. Sueytat and Galban. Omar had been producing
A source close to the Syrian government told around 30,000 bpd prior to the Syrian Civil War,
Middle East Oil & Gas (MEOG) that the “child” but was in the hands of Daesh from mid-2011
of a former US vice president had also been until October 2017.
instrumental in the deal In October 2019, Russian Defence Minis-
try spokesman Igor Konashenkov said: “Tank
Resources and production trucks guarded by US military servicemen and
Syria has proven reserves of 2.5bn barrels of oil private military companies smuggle oil from
and 241bn cubic metres of gas, oil production is fields in eastern Syria to other countries. In the
estimated at 15,000-40,000 bpd, though capacity event of any attack on such a convoy, US spe-
was running at around 400,000 bpd before civil cial operations forces and combat aviation are
war broke out in 2011. immediately used to protect it.”
Numbers for gas are less clear, but the most He added: “To secure such a continuous
recent verified data, from 2011, showed output financial flow free from control and taxes, the
of 8.95 mcm per day of dry natural gas, and more top officials at the Pentagon and Langley will
recent estimates are just 3.4 mcm per day. be willing to guard and protect oil wells in Syria
Late last year, a US defence official was quoted from the imaginary ‘hidden cells of the Islamic
by Kurdish media as saying that the US had State (ISIS)’ indefinitely.”
commenced “reinforcing positions in the Deir For now, Delta Crescent’s plan is, according
ez-Zor region, in co-ordination with [SDF] part- to sources cited by Politico, to “sell the Syrian oil
ners, with additional military assets to prevent to various customers in the region, potentially
the oilfields from falling back into the hands of including Assad, Turkish-backed rebels and
ISIS or other destabilising actors.” Iraqi Kurdistan, all of whom could then sell it on
The SDF brought the country’s Tanak oilfield the international market.”
back on stream in August 2018, roughly a year Meanwhile, the outlet quoted Delta Cres-
after it and the US-backed YPG took the control cent’s Cain as saying that products would be
of the asset from Daesh militants. sold “directly into the international market at
Tanak, Syria’s second-largest oilfield, is market prices so that they can use the proceeds
located east of the River Euphrates in the oil-rich to rebuild their economy and help their people.”
Deir Ezzor province, near the country’s top oil Considering the backlash and controversy,
asset, the Omar field. it appears that the only route to market for any
Tanak’s 150 existing wells are thought to be oil produced by Delta Crescent will be across the
capable of 40,000 bpd of production, but infor- border into the Kurdistan Region of northern
mation about the asset’s condition has not been Iraq, which has been a well-trodden fuel trading
forthcoming since the SDF retook the field in route over the past five years or so. Given the US
November 2017. Local media outlet Zaman Al position of supporting Erbil in recent years, this
Wasl quoted sources at the time as saying that the should also come as little surprise.™

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