Kurds in Syria are sharing part of the oil pumped at oil fields with the Syrian government under a recently signed deal that is working, Russian news outlet Sputnik reported on Friday, citing a well-informed source.
The Kurds are pumping 50,000 bpd at the al-Rmeilan and Jabsah oil fields in Syria, and they send a third of this production to a government-operated refinery at Homs, according to Sputnik's source. The remainder is processed on site at a local oil refinery, the source added.
The current production at the al-Rmeilan oil field is around 38,000 bpd, while crude oil production at the Jabsah oil field stands at some 12,000 bpd, down from 30,000 bpd before the Syrian war started.
The Syrian government is close to liberating the entire Syrian territory and taking control over all of the country's crude oil reserves, Sputnik quoted its source as saying.
Syria's government and its President Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rely on Russia to help it to restore its oil and gas sector.
In April this year, a Russian delegation visited Damascus to meet with Assad and other officials, and a Russian lawmaker who is overseeing the ties with Syria relayed the contents of the talks to Russian news agency TASS.
Assad has told the Russian delegation that he doesn't expect Western oil and gas companies to work in Syria.
"We are not waiting for Western companies here, especially in the oil and gas sphere. I spoke about that with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin in Sochi. We want Russian companies to work here, and we expect their fast market entry," Assad told the Russian lawmaker, Dmitry Sablin, who in turn spoke to reporters in April.
According to the Syrian president, Syria will need US$400 billion to restore its economy, especially its infrastructure, and this will take 10 to 15 years, TASS reported.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More