The Largest Oil Refinery in Syria Stops Operations After Cut in Oil Supply from Iran

Following the cessation of crude oil shipments from the Islamic Republic since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Syria's largest oil refinery has halted its operations. Ibrahim Muslim, the CEO of the Baniyas refinery, told the Financial Times on Thursday, December 20, that the last oil refining at the facility was conducted on Friday, and there is no crude oil left for processing. The refinery has a capacity to process 90,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil daily. Data from the commodity information company, Kpler, provided to Radio Farda, indicates that Iran has delivered 128 million barrels of oil to Syria in the past five years. Annual details of Iran's oil deliveries and global oil prices in the same years show that the value of this amount of oil has been approximately $10.5 billion. The volume of oil delivered by Iran to Syria in the past decade has even exceeded that of the past five years. The last oil shipment from Iran to Syria was delivered in November, and no oil has been delivered from Iran to Syria this month. Overall, from January to the end of November this year, Iran has supplied an average of 56,000 barrels of crude oil daily to Bashar al-Assad's regime. Uncertainty surrounds Syria's $30 billion debt to Iran. Previously, tanker trackers reported that the last oil shipment from Iran, totaling 750,000 barrels, turned back towards Iranian waters just before reaching the Suez Canal on the morning of Bashar al-Assad's fall. Mr. Muslim told the Financial Times that the Baniyas refinery is currently inactive, and maintenance operations are ongoing at the facility. Officials from the interim government led by Mohammad Bashir have informed him that they expect sanctions against Syria to be lifted soon, allowing the country to purchase necessary parts for the refinery's modernization and import 'non-Iranian' crude oil. Recently, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the issue of fuel supply in Syria should be prioritized, and Turkey has recently begun supplying electricity to Aleppo to prevent power outages in the region. The U.S., along with the European Union and the United Nations, had listed the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham group, which recently overthrew Bashar al-Assad's government and formed an interim government, as a terrorist organization years ago. However, with the group's different behavior and their promise to form an inclusive government, more Western and UN officials are meeting with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham leaders daily, and some Western officials have mentioned the need to reconsider and remove them from the terrorist list. Mr. Muslim stated that there is currently a 'sufficient' amount of fuel reserves in the country, but crude oil imports must be resumed as soon as possible.