Following the various recent announcements from U.S. President Donald Trump that he wants the country to withdraw from all areas of potential conflict in the Middle East – except Saudi Arabia, for the moment, at least – Russia continues to fill the power vacuum. In the centre of the Middle East – Iran and Iraq – it is aided by China, which is stealthily and relentlessly pursing its ‘One Belt, One Road’ project, and to which Iran and Iraq are irreplaceable transit points through which it can reach deep into Europe, as analysed in detail in my new book on the global oil market. Russia is happy to go it alone, however, putting all of the pieces in place prior to Trump’s official Middle East disengagement statements so that it has been perfectly positioned to take over since then. Perhaps no country acts as a better template of this Russian Middle East strategy than Syria, which saw Russia take a definitive military stand in favour of the incumbent president first, followed by the rollout of various business initiatives – two more deals were announced last week - followed by the use of its geographical and infrastructural position to gain strategic military advantage.
The two oil exploration contracts announced last week for two (barely known) Russian firms - Mercury, and Velada - were approved by Syria’s parliament earlier this year and cover exploration and production in three blocks including an oilfield in northeast Syria and a gas field north of the capital Damascus. Just in case anyone was in any doubt about exactly why Syria chose to award these contracts to Russian firms, Syria’s Oil Minister, Ali Ghanem, said that it: “...was in line with the government’s strategy towards friendly states that stood by Syria, with Russia and Iran at the forefront.” According to a senior oil and gas industry source who works very closely with Iran’s Petroleum Ministry, spoken to exclusively by OilPrice.com last week, a slew of new deals – both in the oil and gas sector but also relating to broader infrastructure projects (read ‘military’) – will continue to be signed by Syria with Russia in the coming years, with Iran acting as the local enforcer (especially with the Kurdish diaspora in the region) as and when necessary. “It’s true that the U.S. has kept a few troops in Syria [around 600, in fact] but that was just to allow the U.S. to claim that as and when Turkey and/or Syria massacred the Kurds the U.S. had tried to stop it,” said the Iran source. “In reality, the U.S. is helping the Chinese to advance its ‘One Belt, One Road’ into areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan, so that it [the U.S.] can completely withdraw all of its people form there too, and Syria will follow,” he added. Related: Iran: We Won’t Agree To Any Production Cuts In The Future
Part of the civil war which has bedevilled Syria since 2011 is Bashar al Assad’s rejection of a Qatari request to build a gas pipeline to carry Qatari gas exports to Europe across Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey in competition with Russian gas. Syria’s rejection of the Qatari request triggered the civil war which was abetted and financed by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Qatar (Qatar in its opening phase).
While Syria was never a major oil and gas producer, it was at least self-sufficient in both gas and oil with exports of some 100,000 barrels a day (b/d) to the European Union (EU) until sanctions were imposed on Syria by the EU and its producing oilfields were occupied by opposition forces at the start of the civil war and later by ISIS by until their recovery by US-backed Syrian Kurds.
However, Syria might have huge gas reserves offshore in its free economic zone as part of the huge reserves existing in the Eastern Mediterranean. If Russian companies have signed contracts with the Syrian governments to explore for oil and gas in oilfields in northeast Syria and north of Damascus, it is just a big thank you for Russia’s stand by Syria during the civil war.
Contrast Russia’s stand with the United States who gatecrashed into Syria and continues to this moment to occupy part of Syria’s territory and Syrian oilfields in the Deir Ezzor region in the eastern part of Syria. Its presence there is a violation of international law and Syria’s sovereignty.
Not only President Trump has reneged on his promise to protect his allies the Syrian Kurds forces from Turkey’s military onslaught but he now claims that he is defending Syria’s oil from ISIS when his country and Saudi Arabia have both supported, financed and armed ISIS when it was still fighting President Bashar Al Assad forces.
Now he is using ISIS as the excuse to continue occupying Syrian territory illegally for the purpose of stealing Syria’s oil, depriving the legitimate government of Syria of its own oil and continuing to stir trouble to prevent an end to the civil war there.
It was Syria and Russia who came to the rescue of the Syrian Kurds from destruction by Turkey’s military onslaught. Soon the Turkish Kurds who control the bulk of Syrian oilfields would show their gratitude by returning them to their lawful owners. Moreover, Syria’s armed forces who managed to liberate the overwhelming majority of Syrian territory are more than capable of defending their oilfields from the likes of ISIS.
Sooner or later Syria with support from its close and honourable ally Russia will get back its oil.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London
Following is a quote from Confessions of an "EX" peak oil believer by F William Engdahl.
"Dr. J. F. Kenney is one of the only few Western geophysicists who has taught and worked in Russia, studying under Vladilen Krayushkin, who developed the huge Dnieper-Donets Basin. Kenney told me in a recent interview that “alone to have produced the amount of oil to date that (Saudi Arabia’s) Ghawar field has produced would have required a cube of fossilized dinosaur detritus, assuming 100% conversion efficiency, measuring 19 miles deep, wide and high.” In short, an absurdity.
Western geologists do not bother to offer hard scientific proof of fossil origins. They merely assert as a holy truth. The Russians have produced volumes of scientific papers, most in Russian. The dominant Western journals have no interest in publishing such a revolutionary view. Careers, entire academic professions are at stake after all." It will be interesting to learn what the Russians find. Of course, if oil does originate in deep rock and is constantly rising up to a trap, the question is at what rate. If the rate is very slow then peak oil could still occur.
As for abiotic oil, there may be some truth in it, but we know for a fact that oil fields deplete. So, clearly, the rate that we usually extract it is much higher than the rate it forms. Assuming it's true that it's constantly forming, which is a contested theory.