Oil assets licensed to international oil companies are believed to have been damaged in Turkey’s wave of air attacks against Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria, industry sources speaking not for attribution told Al-Monitor. The sources gave no further details and declined to identify the facilities that were reportedly affected.
Salih Muslim, the co-chair of the Democratic Unity Party, which is part of the governance structure in the Kurdish-controlled zone, confirmed that oil wells in Rmeilan near the Iraqi border where international oil companies operated prior to the outbreak of the Syrian conflict in 2011 were struck in the Turkish attacks. But he was unable to confirm whether the actual blocks licensed to those companies were among those damaged.
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Turkish airstrikes began on Nov. 20, hitting targets over a broad swath of territory, including civilian infrastructure.
Kongra Star, a women’s organization affiliated with the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria, as the governing entity calls itself, asserted in a report last week that “oil pumps, petrol stations, and oil processing sites were widely attacked by UAVs all across the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.” It listed 14 such facilities.
Read more: Al Monitor
