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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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North Korea Boasts of ‘The World’s Strongest’ Missile, but Experts Say It’s Too Big to Use in War

A view shows what they say is a "Hwasong-19" missile being launched at an undisclosed location in this screengrab obtained from a video released on November 1, 2024. (KRT/via Reuters TV/Handout via Reuters)
A view shows what they say is a "Hwasong-19" missile being launched at an undisclosed location in this screengrab obtained from a video released on November 1, 2024. (KRT/via Reuters TV/Handout via Reuters)
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North Korea Boasts of ‘The World’s Strongest’ Missile, but Experts Say It’s Too Big to Use in War

A view shows what they say is a "Hwasong-19" missile being launched at an undisclosed location in this screengrab obtained from a video released on November 1, 2024. (KRT/via Reuters TV/Handout via Reuters)
A view shows what they say is a "Hwasong-19" missile being launched at an undisclosed location in this screengrab obtained from a video released on November 1, 2024. (KRT/via Reuters TV/Handout via Reuters)

North Korea boasted Friday that the new intercontinental ballistic missile it just test-launched is "the world’s strongest," a claim seen as pure propaganda after experts assessed it as being too big to be useful in a war situation.

The ICBM launched Thursday flew higher and for a longer duration than any other weapon North Korea has tested. But foreign experts say the test failed to show North Korea has mastered some of the last remaining technological hurdles to possess functioning ICBMs that can strike the mainland US.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency identified the missile as a Hwasong-19 and called it "the world’s strongest strategic missile" and "the perfected weapon system." The official media outlet said leader Kim Jong Un observed the launch, describing it as an expression of North Korea’s resolve to respond to external threats to North Korea’s security.

The color and shape of the exhaust flames seen in North Korean state media photos of the launch suggest the missile uses preloaded solid fuel, which makes weapons more agile and harder to detect than liquid propellants that in general must be fueled beforehand.

But experts say the photos show the ICBM and its launch vehicle are both oversized, raising a serious question about their wartime mobility and survivability.

"When missiles get bigger, what happens? The vehicles get larger, too. As the transporter-erector launchers get bigger, their mobility decreases," Lee Sangmin, an expert at South Korea’s Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.

The Hwasong-19 was estimated to be at least 28 meters long (92 feet) while advanced US and Russian ICBMs are less than 20 meters long (66 feet), said Chang Young-keun, a missile expert at Seoul’s Korea Research Institute for National Strategy. He suggested that the missile's size likely helped South Korean intelligence authorities detect the launch plan in advance.

"In the event of a conflict, such an exposure makes the weapon a target of a preemptive attack by opponents so there would be a big issue of survivability," Chang said.

Lee Illwoo, an expert with the Korea Defense Network in South Korea, said North Korea may have developed a larger missile to carry bigger and more destructive warheads or multi-warheads. If that's the case, Lee said North Korea could have used liquid fuels as they generate higher thrust than solid fuels. He said some advanced liquid propellants can be stored in missiles for a few weeks before liftoffs.

Lee said North Korea may have placed a dummy, empty warhead on the Hwasong-19 to make it fly higher.

In recent years, North Korea has reported steady advancement in its efforts to obtain nuclear-tipped missiles. Many foreign experts believe North Korea likely has missiles that can deliver nuclear strikes on all of South Korea, but it has yet to possess nuclear missiles that can strike the mainland US.

The hurdles it has yet to overcome, according to experts, include ensuring its warheads survive the heat and stress of atmospheric reentry, improving the guidance systems for the missiles, and being able to use multiple warheads on a single missile to defeat missile defenses.

"Acquiring reentry technology is currently the most important goal in North Korea’s missile development, specifically for ICBMs, but they just keep increasing the ranges instead. This possibly suggests they still lack confidence in their reentry technology," Lee Sangmin said.

Chang said Friday's state media dispatch on the launch lacks details on the technological aspects of the Hawsong-19 and focused on publicity.

Other North Korean claims about its weapons capabilities have been met with wide outside skepticism.

In June, North Korea claimed to have tested a multiwarhead missile in the first known launch of such a weapon, but South Korea said the weapon instead blew up. In July, when North Korea said it had test-fired a new tactical ballistic missile capable of carrying "a super-large warhead," South Korea said the claim was an attempt to conceal a botched launch.

North Korea's missile program is still a major regional security concern, with the country openly threatening to use its nuclear missiles against its rivals. In a joint statement Thursday, the foreign ministers of South Korea, the US and Japan condemned the ICBM launch as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and said they're committed to strengthening their efforts to block North Korea's illicit revenue generation funding its missile and nuclear programs.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Friday it has imposed unilateral sanctions on 11 North Korean individuals and four organizations for their alleged roles in procuring missile components and generating foreign currency to fund Pyongyang’s weapons program. The sanctions are largely symbolic given that financial transactions between the Koreas have been suspended for years.

Also Friday, South Korea and the US conducted their first-ever joint live-fire exercise using unmanned aerial vehicles as part of efforts to demonstrate their readiness. South Korea’s RQ-4B "Global Hawk" reconnaissance aircraft and the US MQ-9 Reaper strike drone were mobilized for the training, according to South Korea's air force. South Korea and the US have been expanding their regular military drills to cope with North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats.

Observers say that Thursday's launch, the North's first ICBM test in almost a year, was largely meant to grab American attention days before the US presidential election and respond to international condemnation over North Korea's reported dispatch of troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.

North Korea's reported troop dispatch highlights the expanding military cooperation between North Korea and Russia. South Korea. The US and others worry North Korea might seek high-tech, sensitive Russian technology to perfect its nuclear and missile programs in return for joining the Russian-Ukraine war.