Syria resumed fuel shipments from its largest refinery, Banias, for the first time in over six months on June 16, its authorities announced, in a sign of further normalization for the country’s troubled energy sector.
The 120,000 b/d Banias refinery was taken offline late 2024 when the fall of President Bashar al-Assad saw Iran suspend the crude shipments that fed its operations.
However, in April, new crude deliveries from Russia, another backer of the old regime, helped the refinery to restore some production. Now, sanctions waivers from the US and EU have paved the way for the site to potentially forge new supply links, and Syrian officials have set their sights on reviving a once lucrative oil export business.
A statement on the Banias Facebook page announced that State-backed Syria Trading Oil Company (Sytrol) shipped 30,000 mt of petroleum product from the Banias terminal on June 16, marking the first export from the site since it was shut for four months.
“This step is an honorable beginning of Syria’s return to the map of oil export and oil derivatives,” said a statement from Gayath Diab, Director of the General Administration of Oil in the Syrian Ministry of Energy.
Velos Fortuna, a Marshall Islands-flagged Medium Range tanker, became the inaugural cargo to lift product from the newly-restarted refinery, according to the statement and S&P Global Commodities at Sea shipping data.
CAS data showed the tanker arriving at the port from Libya on June 11, before loading unspecified clean oil products and departing six days later.
The tanker signal currently shows the vessel as ‘for order’ without disclosing a final destination, CAS data showed.
Նյութերը գեներացվում են տարբեր կայքերից արհեստական բանականության միջոցով