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British Company Concerned over its Oil ‘Rights’ in Northeastern Syria

A US armored vehicle drives past an oilfield in the countryside of al-Qahtaniyah town in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province near the Turkish border, on Aug. 4, 2020. (AFP)
A US armored vehicle drives past an oilfield in the countryside of al-Qahtaniyah town in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province near the Turkish border, on Aug. 4, 2020. (AFP)
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British Company Concerned over its Oil ‘Rights’ in Northeastern Syria

A US armored vehicle drives past an oilfield in the countryside of al-Qahtaniyah town in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province near the Turkish border, on Aug. 4, 2020. (AFP)
A US armored vehicle drives past an oilfield in the countryside of al-Qahtaniyah town in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province near the Turkish border, on Aug. 4, 2020. (AFP)

British company Gulfsands Petroleum has distanced itself from the partnership agreement between the United States’ Delta Crescent Energy company and the Kurdish autonomous administration east of the Euphrates River in northeastern Syria.

Officials from the firm told Asharq Al-Awsat that they will “defend the company’s rights” to invest in oil in Block 26, which is located east of the Euphrates and believed to produce 20,000 barrels of oil per day.

Gulfsands had signed a deal with the Syrian government in 2003 to invest and develop Block 26. According to the agreement, two-thirds of production will go to the government after calculating costs. Since 2011, the block came under the control of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and later the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) due to the ongoing Syrian conflict and the American and European sanctions against the Damascus regime.

Officials from Gulfsands told Asharq Al-Awsat that more than 26 million barrels of oil have been produced from Block 26 in four years. The production was unlicensed and it is unknown who received the oil or the extent of the damage that has been inflicted on the field.

Gulfsands has invested more than 350 million dollars in Block 26, which experts estimate is worth billions of dollars.

American investment
Prior to the eruption of the conflict in 2011, Syria used to produce some 360,000 barrels of oil per day. Production has since dropped to around 60,000. Some 90 percent of its oilfields and half of its gas fields are controlled by the SDF, which is backed by the US-led anti-ISIS coalition.

In Aril, Delta Crescent Energy struck a deal with the autonomous administration to obtained a license from the US Treasury to operate in northeastern Syria seeing as the war-torn country’s oil sector is under American and European sanctions.

Delta Crescent Energy was established in the US state of Delaware in February 2019. Its partners include former US ambassador to Denmark James Cain, James Reese, a former officer in the Army’s elite Delta Force, and John Dorrier Jr., a former executive at GulfSands Petroleum, reported Politico in August.

In July, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is close to President Donald Trump, declared before Congress that SDF chief Mazloum Abdi had informed him of the signing of an oil investment agreement with an American company. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration supports the deal and said it is intended to “modernize” the oilfields. “The deal took a little longer ... than we had hoped, and now we’re in implementation,” he said.

The deal was, however, widely criticized by Damascus, Moscow, Tehran and Ankara. They slammed it as “political recognition of the Kurdish administration” and violation of the Astana agreement reached between Russia, Iran and Turkey. Washington defended the deal, saying: “Syrian oil is for the Syrian people and we remain committed to the unity and territorial integrity of Syria. The United States government does not own, control, or manage the oil resources in Syria. The populations in areas liberated from ISIS make their own decisions on local governance.”

Protecting oil
“The goal is to get the production back up to where it was before the civil war and sanctions,” said Ambassador Cain according to Politico.

“I think this company’s going to improve the viability of the northern oil fields to make them more productive,” Graham said. “Conceptually it makes sense that we should, instead of just writing checks, help people help themselves.”

In October 2019, Graham played a role in persuading Trump to keep American forces deployed east of the Euphrates River after he had announced that he wanted to pull back the troop to the border with Turkey. Trump later confirmed that a small number of forces will remain in oil-rich areas, stressing that the US has “secured and protected” the oil. Indeed, some 500 soldiers remain east of the Euphrates and they have been supplied with better military gear to protect the oilfields.

Many questions have been asked about the role the American military and administration are playing in the new oil deal. Pentagon spokesperson Jessica McNulty noted that the Department of Defense “does not have an affiliation with any private companies in regard to the oilfields in northeast Syria.” However, she added that US forces in the region are “securing critical petroleum infrastructure in northeast Syria to deny ISIS access to critical resources and revenue,” reported Politico. McNulty also noted that the oil resources "currently provide some of the funding necessary for the SDF to conduct operations" against ISIS.

Sovereign rights
The deal between the American company and autonomous administration calls for the establishment of at least two makeshift oil refineries in the region east of the Euphrates that can produce 20,000 barrels of oil per day. The production will meet some of the local demand.

Other sources, however, weighed the possibility that the deal could allow operators to expand their work and invest in other oilfields. This would raise concerns among other oil companies, including Gulfsands.

Officials at the firm said they were “surprised” with the deal that was struck between Delta Crescent Energy and the Kurdish administration. One official said Gulfsands continues to investigate the details of the agreement and was determined to “protect” its rights. Moreover, he said that the firm was not involved in politics, but hopes that peace and stability will be restored in Syria.

Gulfsands remains committed to its project in Syria and is determined to protect its rights in line with international laws, he added. The company has signed a binding agreement with a sovereign state and it expects that its rights be recognized, hoping that it will resume its work when conditions permit it.

On the other end of the divide, Kurdish officials defended their deal with Washington, saying it had political undertones seeing as it was signed directly between an American company and the autonomous administration without having to obtain the Syrian government’s approval.

“The political significance of the deal is important and is tantamount of recognition” of the autonomous authority, he explained. Furthermore, it eases concerns that the US may suddenly pull out its troops from the region east of the Euphrates.

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Childhood Cancer Patients in Lebanon Must Battle Disease while Under Fire

Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
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Childhood Cancer Patients in Lebanon Must Battle Disease while Under Fire

Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Mohammad Mousawi, 8, a displaced boy from the southern suburb of Beirut who suffers from leukaemia, steps out the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Carol Zeghayer gripped her IV as she hurried down the brightly lit hallway of Beirut’s children’s cancer center. The 9-year-old's face brightened when she spotted her playmates from the oncology ward.

Diagnosed with cancer just months before the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel erupted in October 2023, Carol relies on weekly trips to the center in the Lebanese capital for treatment.

But what used to be a 90-minute drive, now takes up to three hours on a mountainous road to skirt the heavy bombardment in south Lebanon, but still not without danger from Israeli airstrikes. The family is just one among many across Lebanon now grappling with the hardships of both illness and war.

“She’s just a child. When they strike, she asks me, ‘Mama, was that far?’” said her mother, Sindus Hamra, The AP reported.

The family lives in Hasbaya, a province in southeastern Lebanon where the rumble of Israeli airstrikes has become part of daily life. Just 15 minutes away from their home, in the front-line town of Khiam, Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters clash amidst relentless bombardments.

On the morning of a recent trip to Beirut for her treatment, the family heard a rocket roar and its deafening impact as they left their home. Israeli airstrikes have also hit vehicles along the Damascus-Beirut highway, which Carol and her mother have to cross.

The bombardment hasn’t let up even as hopes grew in recent days that a ceasefire might soon be agreed.

More than war, Hamra fears that Carol will miss chemotherapy.

“Her situation is very tricky — her cancer can spread to her head,” Hamra said, her eyes filling with tears. Her daughter, diagnosed first with cancer of the lymph nodes and later leukemia, has completed a third of her treatment, with many months still ahead.

While Carol's family remains in their home, many in Lebanon have been displaced by an intensified Israeli bombardment that began in late September. Tens of thousands fled their homes in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs — among them were families with children battling cancer.

The Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon quickly identified each patient’s location to ensure treatments remained uninterrupted, sometimes facilitating them at hospitals closer to the families' new locations, said Zeina El Chami, the center’s fundraising and events executive.

During the first days of the escalation, the center admitted some patients for emergency care and kept them there as it was unsafe to send them home, said Dolly Noun, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist.

“They had no place to go,” she added. "We’ve had patients getting admitted for panic attacks. It has not been easy.”

The war has not only deepened the struggles of young patients.

“Many physicians have had to relocate,” Noun said. “I know physicians, who work here, who haven’t seen their parents in like six weeks because the roads are very dangerous.”

Since 2019, Lebanon has been battered by cascading crises — economic collapse, the devastating Beirut port explosion in 2020, and now a relentless war — leaving institutions like the cancer center struggling to secure the funds needed to save lives.

“Cancer waits for no one,” Chami said. The crises have affected the center’s ability to hold fundraising events in recent years, leaving it in urgent need of donations, she added.

The facility is currently treating more than 400 patients aged from few days to 18 years old, Chami said. It treats around 60% of children with cancer in Lebanon.

For Carol, the war is sometimes a topic of conversation with her friends at the cancer center. Her mother hears her recount hearing the booms and how the house shook.

For others, the moments with their friends in the center's playroom provide a brief escape from the grim reality outside.

Eight-year-old Mohammad Mousawi darts around the playroom, giggling as he hides objects and books for his playmate to find. Too absorbed by the game, he barely answers questions, before the nurse calls him for his weekly chemotherapy treatment.

His family lived in Ghobeiry, a neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Their house was marked for destruction in an Israeli evacuation warning weeks ago, his mother said.

“But till now, they haven’t struck it,” said his mother, Suzan Mousawi. “They have hit (buildings) around it — two behind it and two in front of it.”

The family has relocated three times. They first moved to the mountains, but the bitter cold weakened Mohammad’s already fragile immune system.

Now they’ve settled in Ain el-Rummaneh, not far from their home in the southern Beirut suburbs known as Dahiyeh, which has come under significant bombardment. As the Israeli military widened the radius of its bombardment, some buildings hit were less than 500 meters (yards) from their current home.

The Mousawis have lived their entire lives in Dahiyeh, Suzan Mousawi said, until the war uprooted them. Her parents’ home was bombed. “All our memories are gone,” she said.

Mohammad has 15 weeks of treatment left, and his family is praying it will be successful. But the war has stolen some of their dreams.

“When Mohammad fell ill, we bought a house,” she said. “It wasn’t big, but it was something. I bought him an electric scooter and set up a pool, telling myself we’d take him there once he finishes treatment.”

She fears the house, bought with every penny she had saved, could be lost at any moment.

For some families, this kind of conflict is not new. Asinat Al Lahham, a 9-year-old patient of the cancer center, is a refugee whose family fled Syria.

“We escaped one war to another,” Asinat’s mother, Fatima, added.

As her father, Aouni, drove home from her chemotherapy treatment weeks ago, an airstrike happened. He cranked up the music in the car, trying to drown out the deafening sound of the attack.

Asinat sat in the back seat, clutching her favorite toy. “I wanted to distract her, to make her hear less of it,” he said.

In the medical ward on a recent day, Asinat sat in a chair hooked to an IV drip, negotiating with her doctor. “Just two or three small pinches,” she pleaded, asking for flavoring for her instant noodles that she is not supposed to have.

“I don’t feel safe ... nowhere is safe ... not Lebanon, not Syria, not Palestine,” Asinat said. “The sonic booms are scary, but the noodles make it better,” she added with a mischievous grin.

The family has no choice but to stay in Lebanon. Returning to Syria, where their home is gone, would mean giving up Asinat’s treatment.

“We can’t leave here,” her mother said. “This war, her illness ... it’s like there’s no escape.”