IS Oilfields Remain Operative Despite US, Russian Airstrikes
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עברית (Hebrew)
Oil sales — the extremists’ largest single source of continual income — are a key reason the Islamic State has been able to maintain its rule over their self-declared “caliphate” stretching across large parts of Syria and Iraq, according to Iraqi intelligence and U.S. officials.
The orgzniation rakes in up to $50 million a month from selling crude from oilfields under its control in Iraq and Syria, part of a well-run industry that U.S. diplomacy and airstrikes have so far failed to shut down. The group has even been able to bring in equipment and technical experts from abroad to keep the industry running, and the United States has recently stepped up efforts to close off this support.
IS sells the crude to smugglers for discounted prices, sometimes $35 per barrel but as low as $10 a barrel in some cases, compared to just under $50 a barrel on international markets. The Islamic State group is believed to be extracting about 30,000 barrels per day from Syria, smuggled to middlemen in neighboring Turkey. In Iraq, they produce around 10,000-20,000 barrels per day, mostly from two oilfields outside Mosul. In total, the group is believed to make $40-$50 million a month from sales, Iraqi officials said. That income is on top of the money that the militants first looted from the Iraqi central bank branch in the city of Mosul when they seized it in the summer of 2014 and other bank branches.
So far, the campaign of Russian airstrikes in Syria has not hit IS oil infrastructure, though the nearly year-old U.S.-led air campaign has on occasion. In Iraq, airstrikes and ground offensives have had a greater effect in grinding down the oil industry. Still, little has hurt the sophisticated industry that the IS group has built up around oil production.
