Sections:
- BACKGROUND EVENTS …
- SPOILS OF WAR?
- SYRIAN PRODUCTION & RESERVES AND GLOBAL COMPARISONS
- GENERAL GEOLOGY OF MAJOR OIL-PRODUCING AREAS
- Selected Bibliography
BACKGROUND EVENTS RELATIVE TO SYRIAN US TROOP
WITHDRAWAL: On October 18, 2019, US
President Trump tweeted, regarding the withdrawal of US troops from northern
parts of Syria, “The U.S. has secured the Oil“. I, probably like many, wondered
what he meant since Syria does not pop immediately into my head as an oil power,
despite the fact that it borders Iraq, a major petroleum producer. Oilprice.com did report on October 21, that US military forces “will keep hold of oil and
gas fields in eastern Syria and the Al Tanf base in the south [Al Tanf near
Syrian-Iraqi-Jordanian border] under the plans to withdraw troops from the
country”, citing Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. Continued deployments at Al Tanf
will include “keeping a special forces unit to help the Syrian opposition with
intelligence support.”
That Oilprice.com article continues that also being retained are
“contractors from private military firms near oil wells and gas plants in the
region east of the Euphrates river, which holds 90 percent of Syria’s oil. . .”
Most of the oil is under the control of Kurdish SDF forces, and the plan then
was to prevent eastern Syrian wells from being taken over by Syrian President
Assad. US special forces also “will continue to be in control of oil and gas
fields in Deir Ezzor” [also romanized Deir Ez-Zour, Dayr az Zawr] along the
Euphrates River (Figure 1). Even as of October 23, after the October 22
agreement between Turkey and Russia “that allowed Syrian troops to move back into a large part” of the northern Syrian frontier border with Turkey (Figure
2), Kurdish-led forces still retained control of the eastern Syrian oil fields.
The largest oil field in Syria is Al-Oman near Deir Ez-Zour.
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FIGURE 1: Energy
Information Agency (EIA) map from 2015 showing Syrian oil fields and pipelines.
Most of Syria’s liquid petroleum is from around Deir Ez-Zour and to the SE/NW
in the Euphrates Fault System. The oldest exploited fields in the very
northeast of Syria are in a different structural unit, the east-trending Mesopotamian
Foredeep. Base map from https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/analysis.php?iso=SYR
. Tectonic provinces, superimposed in purple, are based on Aldahik and others
(2017) and Brew and others (2001) (full citations at end of post*).
|
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FIGURE 2: Map of recently imposed “safe zone” in northern Syria along border with Turkey. From BBC.com.
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Then, on October 25, 2019, US
Defense Secretary Mark Esper stated that, despite the early October US troop
withdrawal, the US may deploy “mechanized forces [tanks] . . . to strengthen our position at Deir ez-Zor” and deny
ISIS access to the oil fields, which they had held at one time and used as a source
of income (Figure 3). The Washington Post reported this change in plans occurred when President Trump was persuaded
to maintain a force in order to lower any potential threat to oil fields. This
pleased the US Department of Defense and other officials, frustrated with the
initial withdrawal announcement, since it would allow “counterterrorism
operations and airspace control to continue.”
(Just a note that Deir Ez-Zor is about 280 km east of Idlib in NW Syria near where
ISIS leader Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed on October 27.)
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FIGURE 3: Map
of Syria and Iraq in mid-2014 showing areas of ISIS control, relative to major
oil fields. From https://www.oilandgas360.com/iraq-update/ .
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SPOILS OF WAR?: However, who may eventually exploit and
profit from that oil, now produced by Kurdish SDF forces, is a legal quagmire
since the oil and natural gas, like in any country with nationalized or
government oil companies, is owned by the Syrian government. The Trump idea of “take the oil” had been previously examined and rejected while Rex Tillerson, former
ExxonMobil CEO, was Secretary of State, according to Brett McGurk, Special
Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL until December
2018.
A good analysis on what may or may not be internationally
legal under the concept of “spoils of war” can be found at https://sites.duke.edu/lawfire/2016/09/25/dont-conflate-illegal-pillage-with-spoils-of-war-and-other-lawful-takings/.
It addresses movable vs immovable assets, private vs. state property, peace
settlements, wrongful acts, reparations, and was written in response to 2016 remarks by President Trump referencing
Iraq: “Now, there was no victor there, believe me…But I always said: Take the oil.”
SYRIAN PRODUCTION & RESERVES AND GLOBAL
COMPARISONS: Before the
Syrian civil war, in 2011, according to the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) Country Analysis Sheet on Syria, Syria produced just under 400,000 barrels of oil per day (b/d) and 316
million cubic feet (Mmcf/d) natural gas per day. At this capacity, it would
rank 31st on the 2018 international production rankings. This was down from a peak of 582,000 b/d in 1996. However, by 2015, production, according to EIA notes,
had decreased to less than 25,000 b/d. International sanctions, withdrawal of international
petroleum partners, war, oil theft, and damage to infrastructure has hindered
all aspects of hydrocarbon resource development and delivery of energy services
to the population. By 2018, EIA had Syria 75th in country rankings
producing 28,000 barrels per day of oil and other liquids.
So, is the amount of oil in Syria
“massive”, as described by President Trump on October 27, either in terms of
production or proved reserves? (Answer = No) Compared to Syrian peak daily
production of 582,000 b/d (1996), in 2018, the US, at number 1, produced 18 million barrels/day (b/d), Saudi Arabia
(#2) 12.4 million, Canada (#4) 5.3 million, and Iraq (#6) 4.5 million b/d.
Syria’s proved oil reserves, as of
2015, were 2.5 billion barrels;
natural gas reserves were 8.5 billion
cubic feet.
In 2017, US proved reserves were 39.2 billion barrels crude oil, 464 trillion cubic feet natural gas;
Saudi Arabian reserves were 266 billion
barrels oil, 303 trillion cubic feet
natural gas; Iraq reserves 149 billion barrels oil, 135 trillion cubic feet natural gas.
In 2011, 60% of
Syria’s oil production was heavy (low gravity or ‘thicker’) and high sulfur
(EIA 2015). Souedie or Syrian Heavy crude, API gravity 24˚, is a blend of oils from northeastern-most Syria, which does make it less
desirable on the world market and requires specific refinery configurations.
Syrian Light, a blend of oil with API gravity 36˚ (the higher the API number
the lower the viscosity), is primarily produced from the
southern Euphrates Graben including the Deir Ez-Zour city/ Al-Omar field area.
GENERAL GEOLOGY OF MAJOR OIL-PRODUCING AREAS:
Geologically, the large oil field
Al-Omar and other production in the area of Deir Ez-Zour City in eastern Syria
along the Euphrates River is in the Euphrates Graben AKA Euphrates Fault System,
Euphrates Graben System (Figure 1). Oil and gas in the graben was not
discovered until the 1980’s. The oldest production is in the very northeast in
the Mesopotamian Foredeep, where an American oil producer discovered the first fields immediately after World War II. However, in 1958, his concessions and
equipment were confiscated and nationalized by Syrian government with no
compensation. Other comparatively minor production areas are the Palmyrides and the Abd el Aziz/Sinjar uplifts.
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FIGURE 4:
Northeast-southwest cross-section across southern Euphrates Graben showing
distributed extensional faulting. From Brew and others, The Leading Edge, 1997.
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An excellent synopsis of the geology
of Syria, including hydrocarbon habitat is by Graham Brew and others (2001, GeoArabia)*.
This publication includes a large tectonic map, time slice figures of structure
and formation thickness, a tectonic evolution chart, and a chart of time vs petroleum
system elements of various Syrian hydrocarbon provinces. It is based on Brew’s
dissertation at Cornell University. Other citations also used in this
post’s geologic summary are listed below*.
The Euphrates Graben is a
highly-faulted rift zone. Rather than having major border faults enclosing the
structure like many rifts, the Upper Cretaceous extension is distributed among
many faults (Figure 4). The major reservoir unit from which oil and gas are
produced is a highly-permeable Lower Cretaceous sandstone. (For a geologic time
scale, see https://www.geosociety.org/documents/gsa/timescale/timescl.pdf.)
Aldahik and others (2017) described the petroleum geochemistry of Euphrates
Graben oil and used geochemical correlations to determine that the source rocks
from which Euphrates hydrocarbons were generated include the pre-rift Lower
Silurian Tanf Formation (marine shale) and two Upper Cretaceous limestone formations,
one syn-rift, one post-rift. The Tanf Formation is the equivalent of the extensive
Lower Silurian Hot Shales that source much of the prolific fields of the Arabian
peninsula, Iraq, and northern Africa. Hydrocarbons from younger Upper Cretaceous
limestones of the Euphrates Fault System migrated up into older Lower
Cretaceous formations since extensional faulting and block rotation placed younger
formations against older formations across faults (Figure 4).
The
Mesopotamian Foredeep in northeastern-most Syria is a flexural basin, with
minor folding, formed during the Cenozoic collision of the Arabian Plate and
Eurasia. This tectonic event also created the adjacent Zagros Fold Belt which trends east-west just north of Syria,
turning southeast through eastern Iraq/western Iran where it houses world-class oil fields. The source rocks for
the Mesopotamian Foredeep are Triassic and Late Cretaceous in age, while the
main reservoir rocks are Upper Cretaceous/Lower Paleocene limestones and
dolomites. A map of oil fields of countries on the Arabian plate, including Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia is in Figure 5).
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| FIGURE 5: Map of oil fields of the Arabian Plate from Syria in the northwest to Oman in the southeast (American Association of Petroleum Geologists, 1991). Although data on this map is from 1990, these are still the major oil fields of the region and illustrate the relative size of fields in various countries. |
*SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PAPERS ON GEOLOGY
OF SYRIA (some not used in text):
Aldahik, A.,
Schulz, H-M., Horsfield, B., Wilkes, H., Dominik, W., Nederlof, P., 2017, Crude
oil families in the Euphrates Graben (Syria): Marine and Petroleum Geology, v.
86, p. 325-342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2017.05.030
(not open access); Abstract at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264817217301897
Barrier, E., Machhour, L., Blaizot, M., 2014, Petroleum systems of Syria (Chapter 11):
in Marlow, L., Kendall, C. C. G., and Yose, L. A. (eds.): Petroleum Systems of
the Tethyan Region: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Memoir 106. p.
335-378. Abstract only: http://archives.datapages.com/data/specpubs/memoir106/data/335_aapg-sp1960335.htm
Brew,
G. E., litak, R. K., Seber, D., Barazangi, M., Sawaf, T., Al-Imam, 1997, Summary
of the geological evolution of Syria
through geophysical interpretation:
Implications for hydrocarbon exploration: The Leading Edge, v. 16, no.
10, p. 1473-1486.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/266f/5637420befb73af435d94d47ffb70919c9a0.pdf
Brew, G. E.,
2001, Tectonic evolution of Syria interpreted from integrated geophysical and
geological analysis [Ph.D. thesis]: Ithaca, Cornell University, 322 p. http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/people/brew/documents/Brew_dissertation_01.pdf
Brew, G., Barazangi, M.,
Al-Maleh, A., K., Sawaf, T., (2001) Tectonic and geological evolution of Syria:
GeoArabia, v. 6, no. 4, p. 573-616. http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/syria/brew2.pdf (This pdf includes the large tectonic map which is a separate pdf in the issue
of GeoArabia at https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/geoarabia/issue/6/4; both map
and article are open access).
Litak, R.K., Barazangi, M., Brew, G., Sawaf, T., Al-Imam, A., Al-
Youssef, W., 1998, Structure and evolution of the petroliferous Euphrates
graben system, southeast Syria: American Association of Petroleum Geologists
Bulletin, v. 82, p. 1173-1190. Abstract: http://archives.datapages.com/data/bulletns/1998/06jun/1173/1173.htm?q=%2BtextStrip%3Abrew
LINKS TO EIA (Energy Information Agency of US Dept.
of Energy) REPORTS AND NOTES ON SYRIA:
2018 INTERNATIONAL RANKINGS OF TOTAL PETROLEUM AND
OTHER LIQUIDS PER DAY (EIA):
