A mysterious incident occurred off the coast of Syria late June of this year. Local news reported that a sabotage action took place on underwater oil pipelines at the Baniyas oil terminal. Scarce information was available on what exactly happened and the resulting impact, yet the likely use of magnetic limpet mines and scuba divers…
When the season of heavy rainfall began in war-torn Syria, the misery local residents and internally displaced persons (IDPs) have faced over the years was compounded by environmental setbacks. This open-source monitoring blog of the situation in north eastern Syria, currently controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), will look how the rains in the…
Recent eruptions of violence in Libya’s so-called ‘oil cresent’ between armed forces loyal to Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) and rival armed groups resulted in another row of burning oil tanks. In the areas around oil terminals at Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, clashes continued for days. As a result of the shelling, various oil…
Since the so-called Islamic State lost most of its control over oil resources in northeast Syria, various groups have replaced them to take control over the oil infrastructure–or, at least, what is left of it. In the recent Bellingcat article, Hazardous Legacies, an overview was provided of the damaged oil industrial sites and clusters of…
Now that the so-called Islamic State (IS) is rapidly losing terrain in eastern Syria, a race is underway to capture the oil-rich Deir ez-Zor governorate. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and militias loyal to the Syrian government, under cover of the Russian airstrikes, rush towards the fields east of the Euphrates River; but so does…
Monitoring activities at makeshift oil sites in Syria’s Deir Ez-Zor Governorate through satellite imagery suggests there has been a sharp decrease in production activity in the last half of 2016. There could be various reasons for the drop in oil refining, which could have implications for any future strategy of the Islamic State to gain …
