Syria’s oil, gas and mineral resource industries have suffered losses totalling more than $50 billion since the country’s conflict erupted in 2011, the oil minister said in comments published Tuesday.
Oil Minister Suleiman al-Abbas was quoted as saying by Syria’s Al-Watan newspaper that attacks carried out by “terrorist” groups and US-led air strikes on jihadists have severely damaged infrastructure.
The figure is more than double the government’s last announcement in June 2014, when it said Syria’s oil and gas industries had lost $21.4 billion.
Before Syria’s war began more than four years ago, Syria produced 385,000 barrels of oil per day.
Now, the government produces an average of 9,688 barrels of oil per day and 14.8 million cubic metres of natural gas daily, according to Al-Watan.
Syria’s government has lost control of a majority of the country’s oil fields to rebel fighters, the Islamic State jihadist group and the autonomous Kurdish administration in the country’s northeast.
Syria’s oil ministry has said IS was producing 80,000 bpd of oil by September 2014.
And Syria’s Kurdish authorities say they are producing around 15,000 barrels of oil every day.
