Before the severe gasoline crisis that hit Syria in the last quarter of 2020 completely recedes, the Ministry of Oil announced a delay in the arrival of oil derivatives supplies, putting residents at new risk of shortage.
Blaming the “US sanctions and blockade” for the crisis, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday, that it “temporarily reduced the quantities of gasoline distributed to the provinces by 17 percent and the quantities of diesel by 24 percent in order to manage the available stock.
Observers, however, believe said that the direct cause of the renewal of the gasoline and diesel crisis was the increase of ISIS attacks in the Syrian Badia region, the blocking of the Damascus Deir Ezzor road, and the attack on the fuel convoys of the Katerji Company, which supplies Syrian crude oil to the regime’s areas from regions controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the east of the country, where more than 80 percent of the Syrian oil and gas sources are concentrated.
For months, the country has been suffering from a severe transport crisis due to the lack of allocated quantities of diesel at the subsidized price for domestic transport vehicles and the high prices of gasoline for taxis.
The Ministry of Oil, which anticipated the return of long queues in front of gas stations, noted that its measures to reduce the quantities of gasoline distributed to the governorates would continue until the arrival of new supplies.
According to data published by British Petroleum, oil production in Syria, which reached 406,000 barrels in 2008, decreased to less than 24,000 barrels in 2018.
