Oil production and smuggling in the Islamic State

Oil production and smuggling was the largest source of revenue for the finances of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS)[1][2] in Syria and Iraq until the complete loss of its territory in 2019.

[2] Not all energy production was provided by oil,[3] and some electric power supply was continued to Syrian government-held areas.

In 2014, Dubai-based energy analysts put the combined oil revenue from ISIL's Iraqi-Syrian production as high as US$3 million per day.

[8] Oil smuggling to areas outside of Syria was profitable bringing contraband to Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Iran.

[19] Vladimir Putin indicated that the extent of the oil smuggling had reached the point where vehicles "are going to Turkey day and night."

[22] According to Adam Szubin, acting US Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, most of the oil that leaves ISIL-controlled areas is going to places that are under control of the Syrian government.

[23] In January 2016 the Israeli Defence minister alleged that Turkey was buying oil from ISIS[24] In response to the allegations, Serko Cevdet, the head of the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government's (KRG) energy commission, told the Turkish media that the trucks in the footage actually belonged to the Kurds and there was no way that ISIL could have transported them through a Kurdish controlled territory due to the ongoing conflict between the Kurds and IS.

[25] Fawaz Gerges from the London School of Economics and Political Science argued that the claims about Turkey's involvement in ISIL oil trade were conspiracy theories.

[27][28] Arab media accused Israel of being a major buyer of oil smuggled out of the IS-held Syrian and Iraqi territories.

[30] At the end of the pipeline it would have been difficult to determine if some ISIL oil was present in the mix that was supposed to come from Kurdish fields.

[30] In September 2014 the United States and Coalition partners conducted aerial attacks against several Islamic State-operated modular oil refineries in Syria.

[2] In late 2015 a U.S. spokesman conceded that the effectiveness of past air strikes against oil-related targets had been grossly overestimated while the importance of oil production as a revenue maker had been underestimated.

[16] When in May 2015 U.S. forces conducted a raid that killed Abu Sayyaf, detailed records of the oil operation of ISIL were obtained.

After the November 2015 Paris attacks the French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian indicated that degradation of oil production as the "lifeblood" of ISIL needed to be at the center of military strategy.

[35] Prior to targeted air raids, smuggling trucks had sometimes waited for weeks in queues near the oil fields to buy crude.

[36][37] After initial Russian airstrikes against oil smuggling trucks and tankers, ISIL changed its system to prevent the formation of long queues.