Syria’s Oil Minister Bassam Tohme announced on Sunday a partial breakthrough in the country’s recent gasoline crisis, pointing to the arrival of new crude oil supplies “soon.”
Ending the crisis depends on the arrival of oil shipments to Syria, Tohme explained.
He said the Syrian government is working to resolve this issue in cooperation with “friendly countries.” He did not disclose the countries he referred to.
Tohme said the country has resumed distributing 95 octane gasoline, adding that regular 90 octane gasoline will be boosted from Sunday to all provinces, up by 620,000 liters.
The minister said these additional quantities would gradually limit the queues at gas stations, hoping that the crisis would end completely within a few weeks with the arrival of the oil shipments to the Baniyas and Homs refineries.
In late March, the fuel crisis returned prompting long queues.
Oil supplies from Iran have stopped since mid-March after Tehran requested the bill to be paid in cash.
In a meeting with the Labor Union in Damascus last week, Prime Minister Hussein Arnous said “sanctions are a lie, and the truth is that Syria has no money to import oil, while all countries want cash, including the Iranians.”
Experts indicate that Syria’s oil reserves will soon run out, while Arnous previously revealed that there are 50 million liters of gasoline and 33 million liters of diesel.
The war in Ukraine has cast a heavy shadow on the economic situation in Syria, as Russian and Iranian supplies to the war-torn country were affected by Western and US sanctions.
Arab media reports revealed that the government called on Arab countries to allow the private sector to supply Syria with oil and wheat, circumventing the sanctions.
