1/20/2025–|Last updated: 1/20/202507:46 PM (Mecca time)
The Minister of Oil and Mineral Resources in the Syrian caretaker government, Ghiyath Diab, revealed that Damascus issued public tenders to purchase oil and its derivatives.
The Syrian minister told the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on Monday that Damascus had issued public tenders “to lease oil and its derivatives.”
The 13-year war in Syria paralyzed the country’s energy sector, making it largely dependent on imports from Iran.
Ghiyath Diab told the agency at the end of last month, “The oil sector in Syria, after the fall of the former regime, is suffering from several difficulties and challenges, which constitute an obstacle to securing oil derivatives.”
He added: “A number of oil wells are still outside the management of the Syrian state, and this is one of the largest and most prominent obstacles and increases the suffering of the people.”
American exemption
This comes after the United States issued this month an exemption from sanctions on transactions with the ruling institutions in Syria for a period of 6 months after the end of Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
The exemption, known as the General License, allows some energy transactions and personal transfers to Syria until July 7, but the measure did not lift any penalties.
Syria suffers from a severe energy shortage, as the electricity provided by the state is only available for 2 or 3 hours a day in most areas, and the interim government says it aims to provide electricity 8 hours a day within two months.
The US Treasury Department said that this step aims to “help ensure that sanctions do not impede basic services and that the government continues to perform its duties throughout Syria, including providing electricity, energy, water, and sanitation.”
On December 8, a lightning attack launched by Syrian opposition factions ended the decades-long rule of the Assad family.
Penalties
The United States, Britain, the European Union and other governments imposed tough sanctions on Syria after Assad’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011.
The US action would support the sale, supply, storage or donation of energy, including oil and electricity, to or within Syria.
Syria’s oil wealth
Oil is at the forefront of the country’s natural resources, and is a major sector in the country’s economy, and its reserves rank 31st on the global level.
Most of its wells are concentrated in the governorates of Al-Hasakah, Deir ez-Zor, and Raqqa, in the north and east of the country.
In a report published in 2019, the American “Oil Price” website, which specializes in energy affairs, estimated Syria’s total oil reserves at about 2.5 billion barrels, representing 0.2% of the total global reserves amounting to about 1.6 trillion barrels, which is a percentage close to the United Kingdom’s reserves of 2.8 billion barrels. Billion barrels.
However, oil production has declined, according to the British Petroleum website, since 2009, reaching approximately 4,000 barrels per day, compared to 406,000 barrels in 2008. Production continued to decline until it reached 385,000 barrels in 2010, then to 353,000 barrels in 2011. The year the protests against Bashar al-Assad’s regime began, then it continued to decline to 24 thousand barrels per day in 2018.
For his part, the Minister of Oil in the previous government of Hussein Arnous, Firas Qaddour, estimated his country’s production in 2021 at about 31.4 million barrels, with a daily average of 85.9 thousand barrels.
He acknowledged in statements on the sidelines of the Arab Energy Conference, in December last year, that the decline would continue in 2023, reaching 15 thousand barrels per day, which is the lowest production rate witnessed by the oil sector during the last two decades.
Government sources indicate that oil sector revenues constituted 50% of total public revenues between 1990 and 2010, while its exports amounted to about 65% of total exports, and its contribution to the domestic product reached more than 25%, according to the same sources.
