When Donald Trump said he was keen on withdrawing all US troops from Syria (besides those necessary to pacify Israel), what he really meant was all troops except for the ones the US might need to effectively lay claim to some oil fields.
On Wednesday, in the course of explaining to the public how a mini-genocide targeting America’s Kurdish allies in the country was actually “a great outcome”, Trump described Syria as little more than “blood-stained sand“.
He did offer up one caveat to his characterization of the country as a barren wasteland not worth preserving, though. “We’ve secured the oil and, therefore, a small number of US Troops will remain in the area”, he said, before clarifying further: “Where they have the oil”.
Fast forward to Friday, and Mark Esper confirmed that US troops will stay in eastern Syria to avoid a scenario where ISIS fighters retake the oil fields. That would be the same ISIS that Trump says is totally wiped out, and the same fighters who he swore on Wednesday have all been recaptured. (His own envoy refuted that contention, by the way.)
Now, “several hundred” troops will remain in Syria and not surprisingly, Lindsey Graham was instrumental in swaying the president.
“He sees the benefit … of controlling the oil as part of a counter-ISIS strategy”, Graham said, in an interview with the Washington Post, whose Pentagon reporters remind you that “the eastern oil fields in Deir al-Zour province, where most of Syria’s relatively small and low-quality reserves are located, were once the primary source of income for the militants, who sold the oil to the Syrian government, Turkey and, reportedly, even to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces”.
Those fields have been under SDF control since 2015, but Trump’s decision to pull US support for the Kurdish-led coalition puts that at risk.
Hilariously, the total number of troops in Syria could end up being the exact same as it was before. Here’s WaPo again:
Another U.S. official said the latest plan calls for several hundred troops but “less than a battalion,” spread across the region at several locations between the towns of Hasakah and Deir al-Zour. A battalion in most U.S. military units includes 800 to 1,000 troops.
The official said these forces would be in addition to those already there, with the result conceivably approaching the 1,000 Trump initially ordered withdrawn.
The Kremlin isn’t amused. “Washington’s current actions – capturing and maintaining military control over oil fields in eastern Syria – is, simply put, international state banditry”, Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement.
And you can trust Russia on that, because the Kremlin knows a thing or five about “international state banditry” – just ask Sergei Skripal.
Moscow also reiterated that the US never had a legitimate argument for being in Syria. Any continued presence in and around the oil fields is aimed at protecting oil smugglers raking in some $30 million a month, Russia swears.
Earlier this week, during the “blood-stained sand” press conference, Trump said “we’re going to be protecting [that oil], and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future”.
As you can imagine, Assad is keen on holding those fields for himself. Early last year, US airstrikes vaporized dozens of “mercenary” Russians and Syrian forces who got too close to the area, threatening the US operators on the ground.
In light of recent events, it’s not clear how the US plans to supply the troops.
“The area is remote and inaccessible except by three border crossings from Iraq, two of which are controlled by Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq”, WaPo goes on to say, adding that “the main crossing at Fishkhabour is in the far northeast corner of Syria, inside an area now claimed for the Syrian government under an agreement signed this week by Turkey and Russia”.
Read more: Putin, Erdogan Strike Deal; Assad Essentially Restored
The stupidity in all this is well beyond absurd and insane.
Point one, Syria doesn’t have much oil:
From WSJ:
Following the U.S-led campaign against the militant group, production fell by half again, before rebounding to about 30,000 barrels a day last year. *
“Oil, like it or not, is owned by the Syrian state,” Mr. McGurk said Monday in an appearance at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank. “Maybe there are new lawyers, but it was just illegal for an American company to go and seize and exploit these assets.”
Mr. McGurk said that the only way to export the oil legally, the State Department concluded at the time, was to have an arrangement in which the money was put in escrow for use by the Syrians after the civil war was over, an arrangement that would have involved Russia and the Assad government.
But Mr. Trump’s talk about bringing in an American company to develop the oil fields represents a new concept, which follows conversations with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.).
“The biggest fields are in the worst shape,” said Matthew Reed, an analyst at Washington-based consulting firm Foreign Reports. “We’re probably talking multibillion-dollar investments that won’t pay off for years, assuming ISIS doesn’t return or Assad doesn’t capture them.”
Redeveloping existing oil fields is not exactly in the trump budget and providing any help to rebuild infrastructure will be related to lobby deals with trump gangster friends or partnerships with Russia and Turkey, but at what cost and why? It’s like suggesting trump should invade Peru to get ownership of a few oil wells. Of course there’s the issue of extracting oil and refining low-quality oil and making it into a more valuable blended product.
==> Report from 2011
Syria faces shortages of
gas oil and diesel, and needs additional domestic refining capacity to meet these needs. However,
foreign oil companies have been reluctant to commit the investment needed to build new refineries in
Syria without more support from the government. In December, 2010, Venezuela signed a
Memorandum of Understanding to construct the 140,000 bbl/d Froklos refinery, a projects which had
been stalled since an agreement to establish it was signed in March, 2008. Chinese officials have
also discussed a long-delayed 70,000 bbl/d refinery project in Deir al-Zor, where construction was
supposed to have begun in 2008.
==> Then an unusual rabbit hole which is curious:
Investments of European companies in
Syria
Shell’s interests in the licences expire between 2018 and 2024.6 All three contracts are
concluded with the Syrian government and the state owned General Petroleum
Corporation (GPC; previously Syrian Petroleum Company). The oil fields are operated by
Al Furat Petroleum Company, in which SSPD holds a 31.25% interest. SSPD’s partner in
the joint ventures is Himalaya Energy Syria B.V. which is a joint venture between the
Indian ONGC Videsh and CNPC from China.7
7 Syria Shell Petroleum Development B.V., “Annual Report 2009”, Syria Shell Petroleum Development B.V.,
January 2011
In a letter to IKV Pax Christi, Shell in May 2011 state that AFPC is 20% owned by Shell. Probably this is
calculated by multiplying the 65% ownership by Royal Dutch Shell of SSPD with the 31.25% ownership of
AFPC
Shell has a long history in Syria. It has had a presence in the country since the 1940s and
has been a shareholder in Al Furat Petroleum Company (AFPC) for some 25 years.1 In Syria,
Shell is only active in the upstream segment of the oil sector.2
The two subsidiaries of Shell active in Syria’s upstream oil sector, Syria Shell Petroleum
Development and Shell South Syria Exploration, are discussed in the following paragraphs
In May 2010 Shell announced that the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has
acquired 35% in SSPD.3 Shell and CNPC stated that they will continue to look for attractive
investment opportunities in Syria’s upstream industry together.4
https://www.paxvoorvrede.nl/media/files/20110516-shell-must-suspend-operations-in-syria.pdf
Like a good fox, I went down more rabbit holes, why … I have no clue, maybe genetic? In my adventure, I wanted to understand why trump would send troops to protect Syrian oil and hence the facilities. many of the older contracts and licenses between Syria and corporations like Shell have probably morphed into newer shadow arrangements, and obviously, ISIS added-in lots of chaos to the mix, even though it seemed like foreign people/entities remained in place to run the technical operations.
As usual, a stupid maze of confusion in the dark holes, but if there are connections to Shell and China and India and Russia and Turkey — all having prior interests in this mess, why are American taxpayers and our military serving as human shields and sacrifices for foreign entities, who apparently don’t have rights to steal Syrian oil? It’s hard to not see a conspiracy and at least be curious about The Art of The Deal and to wonder if trump in some way has connected the protection of Syrian oil production to China tariffs and other foreign negotiations that are highly questionable. This might be a bit imaginative and maybe not worth wasting time on, but this looks like a pea and shell game.
Here’s some weird feces found in the hole and of course, in no logical order, starting with Shell’s latest SEC filing:
Shell South Syria Exploration Limited
3rd Floor Continental Building, 25 Church Street, Hamilton, HM 12
Syria Shell Petroleum Developme
nt B.V. [j]
Carel van Bylandtlaan 30, The Hague, 2596 HR
Syriaga Neftegaz Development LLC
Novinsky blvd, 31, Moscow, 123242
l Badiah Petroleum Company
Damascus New Sham Western Dummar, Island No 1 – Property 2299, P.O. Box 7660, Damascus
Al Furat Petroleum Company
Damascus New Sham Western Dummar, Island No 1 – Property 2299, P.O. Box 7660, Damascus
DOWNSTREAM BUSINESS ACTIVITIES WITH IRAN,
SUDAN AND SYRIA
SYRIA
We ceased supplying polyols, via a Netherlands-based distributor, to
private sector customers in Syria in 2018. Polyols are commonly used for the production of foam in mattresses and soft furnishings.
http://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReports/PDF/NYSE_RDS.B_2018.pdf
===> In late May, the US officially asked the Dutch government to partake in a new military mission in Northern Syria to avoid the development of a power vacuum in the region.
The American ambassador to the Netherlands sought to place additional pressure on the Dutch government to comply with the request by repeatedly invoking its criticism of the partial US withdrawal from Syria in December 2018.
Indeed, when US President Donald Trump announced a major withdrawal of the US military from Syria last year, the Dutch were among the staunchest critics. Stef Blok, the minister of foreign affairs, argued that the withdrawal could lead to a change in regional power dynamics and new rounds of fighting. The minister of defense, Ank Bijleveld, criticized the administration’s self-declared complete victory over ISIS in the face of the ongoing presence of thousands of ISIS-fighters in Iraq and Syria.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/syriasource/why-is-the-us-clashing-with-the-dutch-over-syria/
==> Shell South Syria Exploration Limited
https://www.gov.bm/39353/shell-south-syria-exploration-limited-margaret-e-powell-39353
The Scheme Secretary
Peter Borland:
Corporate Secretary,
Royal Dutch Shell Group of Companies,
Bermuda
Peter Borland joined Shell
in 2002 as Company
Secretary for the Group
entities in Bermuda, after
20 years with the Bank
of Bermuda (now HSBC).
Type of business
Downstream & Corporate Functions The Shell Group
==> Curious:
United States Court of Appeals,Fifth Circuit.
Annie KELLY;  Jeanette Carpenter, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. SYRIA SHELL PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT B.V., et al., Defendants,
Syria Shell Petroleum Development B.V.;  Al Furat Petroleum Company; etc., etc., etc
Concerning § 1603(b)(2)’s “ownership” prong, the Syrian government owns Syrian Petroleum Company (not a party), which owns 50% of Al Furat.   Therefore, at issue for that prong is the requisite majority status.   But, because we conclude that Al Furat is an organ of a foreign state, we need not consider § 1603(b)(2)’s ownership requirements.
The evidence is sufficient to support the district court’s conclusion that Al Furat made a prima facie showing it is an organ of Syria.   With respect to the first Supra factor, Olsen’s declaration establishes that Al Furat was created by a Syrian government decree for a national purpose:  the development and exploration of Syria’s mineral resources, pursuant to Syria’s policy that all minerals under the surface remain the property of Syria and will be explored and developed in a manner that will best serve the interests of Syria.  
The prerequisites for establishing personal jurisdiction over a corporation, based on the contacts of its subsidiary, are described in Hargrave v. Fibreboard Corp., 710 F.2d 1154 (5th Cir.1983).
[S]o long as a parent and subsidiary maintain separate and distinct corporate entities, the presence of one in a forum state may not be attributed to the other․  Generally, our cases demand proof of control by the parent over the internal business operations and affairs of the subsidiary in order to fuse the two for jurisdictional purposes․  The degree of control exercised by the parent must be greater than that normally associated with common ownership and directorship․  All the relevant facts and circumstances surrounding the operations of the parent and subsidiary must be examined to determine whether two separate and distinct corporate entities exist.