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Friday, October 17, 2014
ISIS black market oil operation booming: officials

ISIS black market oil operation booming: officials
Ma'ad Fayad Asharq Al-Awsat Friday, 17 Oct, 2014
http://www.aawsat.net/2014/10/article55337617

Baghdad, Asharq Al-Awsat—The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) black
market oil smuggling operation is continuing to thrive despite escalating
air strikes targeting the group’s positions in Iraq and Syria, Iraqi
officials and regional oil traders informed Asharq Al-Awsat.

Local and regional sources confirmed that Iraqi black market oil, which is
being used to fund ISIS’s terrorist operations, is being smuggled into Iran,
Turkey and Syria, although the majority of this illegal oil is sold within
Iraq.

Kurdish Iraqi businessman Hoshang Barzanji told Asharq Al-Awsat that black
market ISIS oil is being sold by traders in Mosul, Kirkuk, Erbil and even
the capital Baghdad via intermediaries. “They have intermediaries who deal
directly with ISIS fighters regarding prices and quantity.”

Barzanji said that ISIS’s black market oil operation is thriving, despite
the efforts of the international anti-ISIS coalition that is seeking to
confront the group across Iraq and Syria. “These brokers do not admit
purchasing oil from ISIS; they claim that they buy it from Iraqi smugglers .
. .Even if they know they are dealing with ISIS fighters, this doesn’t
matter to them because they don’t care about politics,” the Kurdish
businessman said.

“The ISIS members who are involved in this are all Iraqi nationals and they
do not deal with these intermediaries and brokers through political or
military means, but rather as [ordinary] smugglers who are selling illegal
goods, even if these funds are going to support the [ISIS] organization,”
Barzanji added.

He affirmed that ISIS black market oil is big business, not just for the
terrorist group and its intermediaries, but the end-of-the-line traders who
sell this on across Iraq and the region.

“ISIS sells one barrel of oil for between 10 and 12 US dollars, while
brokers or dealers can subsequently sell this on for between 25 and 30
dollars,” Barzanji said. Brent Crude currently stands at approximately 85 US
dollars.

However Chief of Staff to the presidency of Kurdistan, Fuad Hussein,
informed Asharq Al-Awsat that Iraqi security forces have scored some
successes against ISIS’s black market oil operation, citing Kurdish
Peshmerga forces defense of Iraq’s oil rich Kirkuk province.

“If ISIS occupied Kirkuk province it would have taken control of oil wells
and export pipelines through which half a million barrels per day (bpd) are
exported to Turkey, and 300,000 bpd to Baiji [in Iraq]. This ultimately had
been their objective . . .To take control of Kirkuk and the Baiji oil
refinery so that all the [major] oil wells and refineries are in their
hands,” Hussein said.

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