DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – The Syrian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources says the devastating foreign-sponsored terrorism against the Arab nation has directly or indirectly inflicted around $100.5 billion in damage on the Arab country’s energy sector.
Top officials at the Syrian ministry said on Saturday that at least 235 of its employees have lost their lives as a result of terrorist attacks on oil refineries and natural gas production plants across the country.
It added that various acts of terror have also resulted in the injury of 64 people employed at Syria’s oil and gas industry.
Additionally, terrorist groups have abducted 112 workers from Syrian oil and gas fields.
The Syrian petroleum ministry added that the war-ravaged country was able to produce about 31.4 million barrels of crude oil throughout last year, equal to an average of 85.9 thousand barrels per day.
While some 16,000 barrels of crude oil are estimated to have been transported on a daily basis to petroleum refining facilities in order to be transformed into products such as petrol, kerosene, diesel oil and fuel oil, more than 70,000 barrels per day of oil have been stolen by U.S. occupation forces and their allied terrorists, the ministry said.
On January 26, the U.S. military used more than a hundred tanker trucks to smuggle crude oil from Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah to neighboring Iraq.
Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing local sources in al-Ya’rubiyah town, reported at the time that a convoy of 130 tankers left Syria through al-Waleed border crossing, and headed towards Iraqi territories.
The sources added that Kurdish-led militants from the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) escorted the U.S. military convoy until it arrived at the border crossing.
The U.S. military has stationed forces and equipment in eastern and northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oilfields in the area from falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists.
Damascus, however, says the unlawful deployment is meant to plunder the country’s resources.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump admitted on several occasions that American forces were in Syria for its oil.