Reporting by Eyad Al Jaafari; Writing by Dani Murad
(Zaman Al Wasl-Eqtsad)- The recent U.S.-led strikes against the Islamic State “IS” and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, have raised suspicion among many people, as the international coalition bombs important oil installations and refineries, and recently targeted a key gas production facility in Syria’s eastern province of Deir al-Zour. The raids allegedly aim to cripple IS’s primary sources of cash and funding, which are oil and Gas.
* So did America’s strikes target the oil refineries and the country’s largest gas plant "Kuniko" in order to curb IS’s sources of funding, or to demolish what is left of Syria’s infrastructure, especially in the oil and gas sectors, and pave the way for American reconstruction companies to reap the results in the near future ?
“Eqtisad” posed this question on the expert in the Syrian oil sector, Engineer Ahamad Faiz Mustafa, who holds a master in “Petroleum Stock & Production Engineering”, and previously has worked in the “Syrian Petroleum Company” and “Hayan petroleum Company” before leaving Syria in 2012 after being chased by regime’s security forces.
First and foremost, the Petroleum expert assured us that it would be premature to judge the goals of the military campaign led by the United States in Syria, because there are a lot of blurred issues that its details are not clear yet, but after reviewing the merits of the strikes that targeted oil refineries and gas plants, as reported by media agencies, we reach a preliminary conclusion that there is no intention by the collation’s leadership to destruct the real infrastructure of Syria.
A spokesman for U.S. Department of Defense (Pentagon), confirmed on Thursday that the Americans are keen to cause the slightest harm possible to the oil refineries installations in Syria, and that the purpose of these strikes is to reduce IS’s capacity of extracting oil and gas and sell them, pointing out that Americans’ desire is to preserve the structure of these facilities, for the benefit of the Syrian moderate opposition, in case they later control instruments of state power.
According to Ahmad, targeting "Kuniko” recently, shows that there is no intention by the coalition to destroy the factory itself, pointing out that most of the news agencies reported the bombing and stressed that the strikes hit the gate and a praying room, however, the factory which was established by the American company “Kuniko Phillips”, and in the era of Assad's son, is not possible to include “a praying area”, which means the strike targeted the gate and one of the administrative buildings that was used by IS’s militants for praying.
And that also indicates that the bombardment aimed to send a threatening message to the jihadist group in order to evacuate the factory, and thus, the Islamic state will lose the advantage of using it.
Mustafa also noted that the targeted facilities are not refineries in the traditional sense, because Syria has only two refineries, in “Homs” and “Banias”, and there was a project to establish a third refinery in “Alfrqls” area before the revolution, but has been postponed, and later cancelled, and what we are talking about today are just small and primitive units to refine crude oil, and not to a high degree of separation to the main components.
Moreover, he added: “These units are mostly made in small and private Turkish companies and even its operators in the first phase were Turks, until they got to know some Syrian engineers and technicians who used them later, in addition to that, the units cant be considered part of the infrastructure of the Syrian oil sector because they were originally temporary and semi-mobile, and did not exist before the revolution in the oil sector. And he predicted that the people who run these units will do the necessary steps to preserve them, or even have them dismantled so that the remains will not be targeted.
What is the impact of the international coalition strikes on the financial sources of “The Islamic State" of oil and gas?
"There is no doubt that the strikes have an impact on the financial income of IS, but the size of that depends on the type of strikes and how the state deals with them, for example if the installations in the large fields are destructed, such as “Al Omar” and “Tank”, then the production will stop entirely in them, but if the strikes targeted the export routes, hitting the oil and gas trucks, then production will stop temporarily, therefore more time is needed to determine the objectives of these strikes, IS’s solutions for this financial blow, and the actual impact of the strikes”, he said.
However, the oil expert commented: “if the coalition wants to pressure the Islamic State in regard of oil, then they will prevent the Turks traders from buying crude oil in the tanks, which will also leave its impact on production, and turkey is able to stop oil smuggling across its borders, if they have the intention to do so.
Mustafa refuted claims that the oil smuggling is done by using hug hoses stretched across the borders by smugglers and without the knowledge of the Turkish government, explaining that "the huge hoses and long distances require pumping systems, with average size at least, and in this case the Turkish government can stop the smuggling if they want, because detecting the tanks is not that difficult, which is the same case on the Syrian side of the border.
* Do you think the international coalition might target “Al Omar” and “Tank” fields, or the significant damage to Syria’s infrastructure will prevent them from that, especially with the recent statements of the Pentagon, which expressed America’s keenness to preserve the oil facilities for the moderate opposition to use it at a later stage?
The expert answered: “such a statement from the American administration indicates their intention not to target the large fields, however, there is no guarantee that it’s the case, because they can hit these facilities, if they believe that poses great pressure on the Islamic State, but in case exporting from these fields has stopped, the production will be useless and thus the fields will stop automatically.
“we cant predict the course of the strikes later, but there is a possibility that IS’s production of oil will stop without the destruction of facilities, putting into consideration that the jihadist militants will not risk being in a potentially targeted places, including oil fields, and therefore (about a month ago), in a period prior to the strikes, they vacated the workers’ housing in Al Omar field to bring the families of the "immigrants" in the organization, but with the start of strikes, of course, the families were moved out of the housing to avoid being harmed.
* And in regard of targeting "Kuniko” we asked the expert: The plant stopped working, how that will affect the work of electricity generators in regime-held areas, according to your information?
”The factory feeds the generating stations of gas and electricity, and has already affected the supply of electricity, but in my opinion, the greatest impact will be on opposition-held areas and not the regime”, he concluded.
And according to Syrian activists, the physical damage was limited in "Kuniko", which is described as the biggest gas facility in the country and feeds several power plants , and produces electricity for about a quarter of Syria.
On Sunday, the strikes also targeted three new oil refineries located near the border with Turkey, and under the control of the Islamic state, and the toll of refineries targeted by the coalition missiles and air strikes rose to more than 12 so far.
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