U.S. Sends Forces to Protect Syrian Oil Fields

You are looking at groups of broken down rusting trucks.

Oil production collapse when agriculture collapsed. Their oil fields had been in decline since 1996.

Assad was buying oil from ISIS.. ISIS had set up little bootleg refineries .. George Haswami was the broker and he's now wanted by Interpol.

 

What are you claiming I don't understand?

 

Im still not seeing where you are getting this 10kbpd from the graph? The decline was because of the war, before that the output was over 350kbp. Its not a load of oil, but at lets say 30 dollars a barrel over a year it ends up being a lot of money for a country like Syria.

140k * 30 = 4,200,000 dollars a day export. * 365 = 1.5 billion dollars in export plus 1.5 billion dollars of crude for internal use unless you want to use a higher price per barrel(the lowest I see is $35pb). Its enough money to care for the Syrian government and does not include the offshore assets you keep mentioning. More than likely our interest is to make things harder for Russia and Assad\Syria and nothing more.

 

Somebody is still moving that oil, and it's not going to Damascus. Whether the trucks are rusty or not matters not.

 

They weren't even meeting domestic consumption. Syria was in a downhill spiral from 2005.. inflation, unemployment, five years of drought, overpopulation and the collapse of the oil sector and agriculture. The Alawites were above the law.. earned their money from extortion, kidnapping for ransom and drug smuggling. A failed state on the Israeli border..

Nothing has changed .. Assad is still an incompetent butcher … and six million Syrian refugees can't go home.

 

Its not fit for asphalt.. There's NO active refineries.. just little tinpot bootleg operations. You should have known all this about Syria in 2005.

 

Im still not sure after the link I posted stating their production before the war or looking at the graph you posted where you are getting the no oil and 10kbp figure. I understand they dont meet domestic consumption but they did export oil over 100kbp, and honestly what does that matter to a country that at some point will have to rebuild whole cities. Its all money, to imply that a country with a gdp of less that 100billion a year does not want billions of dollars of oil for export and domestic consumption seems a little silly. Denying them that oil is just throwing a wrench in their efforts, does not crush them, but it makes things harder for Russia and Assad\Syria not having that income or potential employment opportunities.

 

They have NOT invested in reserve management in nearly a decade.. and no oil majors are going back into Eastern Syria as things stand. In fact, I think all concession agreements will have to be renegotiated with Russia.

Think of Syria from this perspective. Their children haven't been going to school or getting vaccinations for nearly a decade.

 

EXACTLY, like you said, as things stand. They have production opportunities and they probably will be negotiated with Russia for the help they provide the Government. But as things stand, those fields wont be doing much under American control. It is denial of resources we are after, like you have stated the infrastructure has been heavily damaged and would cost the US a lot of to correct (or control as the President has remarked.) The only reason to hold them is to deny them as long as possible to the Syrian government and Russian interests, not to control them for a profit.

And Im not sure about the school thing or vaccinations, have not heard about no schools in the developed and larger cities in Syria but Im sure with a war happening and a lot of villages you will have a lack of education and healthcare in non urban areas. Do you mean in rebel controlled area they don't have schools? Or they don't have schools in Damascus?

 

I have also seen peak production at 360,000 bpd and down to 12,000 bpd.

The country is destroyed. nothing works. Hospitals and clinics and schools have all been bombed. Polio returned to Syria in 2012.

No oil companies are going to work in Syria for a long time. Its too dangerous and there is no way to control costs. When I was a kid the longest pipeline in the world went from Ghawar thru Syria to Sidon... called TAPLINE.

It made a lot of money for Syria.. They sabotaged it over and over again.. Syria is full of thug behavior.

 

Yes civil wars tend to do that, but it will be resolved at some point, things will be rebuilt and you better believe that oil will not remain in the ground if its there. Trumps idea will not work to generate real money for the US, the only thing we can do is deny the resource which does not help the Russian\Syrian alliance. And speaking of Oil companies not working in Syria, I laugh that Trump suggested Exxon Mobil would go over there and invest the time and money to get us a return for our duties there.

Lots of logistical problems geographically, politically, legally, and with costs for the US to do anything there. Not enough OIL for US investment when the returns might take years or never happen if our forces leave.

 

Margot why don't you cut it out. Russia had satellite pictures of the thousands of trucks that was carrying Syria's stolen oil from Raqqa to Turkey in exchange for arms. You can find the images on the internet. (I'm tired of posting them). Right after Moscow began bombing them, the US took over and then began to export the stolen oil to cover the expenses of the CIA.

This doesn't mean that the oil wells produced a great deal, but Assad had enough to export and raise the standard of living of the Syrian people. I'm sure the output of the oil went down when the Jihadists decided to destroy Assad's secular government and began sabotaging the wells.

 

The trucks were abandoned and scattered in the desert.. They weren't on any roads.

George Haswani | Counter Extremism Project
https://www.counterextremism.com/extremists/george-haswani
George Haswani is a U.S.- and EU-sanctioned businessman in Syria who stands accused of acting on behalf of the Assad government and serving “as a middleman for oil purchases by the Syrian regime from ISIL,” also known as ISIS. Based in Syria and carrying Russian citizenship, Haswani is co-owner of HESCO Engineering and Construction Company and, .

 

The troops that Trump so publicly pulled out were sitting ducks. They were practically prisoners.
Trump has now proved that we did not "abandon the Kurds". Now, they don't know where we're going to show up or where we're going to come from. It's not fair, but then again I'd never want to send a US soldier into a fair fight. Good job commander and chief.

 

The war in Syria was never a civil war. The Syrian people that I knew loved Syria's secular and all inclusive government. It was a deliberate regime change attack, and the jihadists/terrorists were being sent in from Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and they were supported by embedded agents from the US, UK, Fr, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

Isn't that criminal? Has anyone asked the American people if they want us to steal money from the Syrian people so they can restore the country that we helped destroy?

Trump is just doing what our State Dept. has been doing all along, and lying to the American people. But then again he did want to steal Iraq's oil to pay for our illegal war. Maybe Trump's using it as a leverage towards Russia to get concessions in the seas off Syria or in the Arctic.

Now that's just great. Making the Syrian people suffer because Russia won't give concessions. That's like beating someone over the head because the other person won't give you something.

 

Of course they were on the road. There were thousands of them. For heaven's sake I posted them so many times. Here are the images of the American planes bombing the tankers after Russia began bombing them.



One has to feel sorry for the Syrian people that they have to pay for their own oil because it's cheaper. They were not the only ones. Putin gave a list of 30 nations that were buying Syria's stolen oil but it was ignored. Three of the countries were Japan, Ukraine and Israel.

 

Syria didn't have enough oil for Ukraine, Japan and Israel LOLOL

The Russians were playing a game.. they were in a struggle with Turkey over Turkstream. The machinations are really complicated and go back 12 years.. It will give you a headache to read their feuding and making up... along with the propaganda.

Turkstream may still fail. I can't believe they would run pipeline thru old mine fields..

George Haswami traveled on a Russian passport and had and Alawite wife.

 

That's not true. Turkey was never going to invade that part of Syria with U.S. troops there. If he warred against the US it would be an act of war. Turkey is part of NATO. Those 50 or so U.S. military there to give strategic support (not fighting support) have been there with the Kurds for years. The US partnership with the Kurds in Syria began during the Obama administration but intensified under Trump, who armed the fighters. The United States didn't want to put its own troops on the ground in Syria to battle ISIS. So it was going to have to find another option,and the Kurds were that option.

 

I'm sorry but Trump is just so stupid and Exxon Mobile thinks he's a world class idiot. Oil majors don't invest in war zones. There's too much risk against reward... and there are gobs of other places where they can develop reserves in a far more stable environment. That's why ARAMCO is the biggest, most well integrated and successful oil company in the world.

Assad is still in power and the Assad clan are thugs. Russia will squish Assad like a bug if it suits them to do so. Syria is a liability not an asset.

They are needy, wasteful and violent.

 

It could be complicated legally, not much for the US government since they can get away with it, but could be for an oil major if they got involved. As I linked above, there are a lot of logistical, legal, political and geographic problems for the US to financially gain from all of this. All we can do is sell tanker trucks, so it wont provide a return on the money we have spent there and seems illegal if we are selling it to the Syrian government itself.

 

Because of American sanctions to overthrow the secular and legally elected President Assad. The US, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar and Turkey have been supplying ISIS and Al Queda with money and arms for years to overthrow him, and if you don't believe me, then get on to 9:00 on the following video and you will be given all the proof you need.

 

Jeannette you do know they have ROADS in Syria.. All the Russian satellite pics show are abandoned trucks and tanker trucks.

 

This moron thinks Gatar is pronounced like guitar. New World Order? He's nuts.. and he's not in Israel so that's fake too. You can't blame the Arab League for what Assad did.. Hillary Clinton called him a "reformer" and rejected military action for 2 years.

 

It is fit for something, because somebody is buying it and somebody is selling it.

 

Crude oils can be blended if not fit for certain applications. They do it all the time here in Houston, same with gasoline using chemicals and other blend stocks. They make a lot of money doing that. But as you say, they also have buyers as is.