Speaking to the country’s parliament this week, Syrian Prime Minister Hussein Arnous gave several interesting updates on the country’s struggling oil and gas sector. First, he confirmed output from government-held territories stands at 20,000 b/d (against 390,000 b/d before the outbreak of war in 2011). This shows little-if-any progress from a year ago (MEES, 17 January 2020) despite plans to grow production from retaken oil fields to 100,000 b/d.

Gas output appears to have actually fallen, with current production at 450mn cfd against around 580mn cfd a year ago. Recent attacks on gas processing and refining facilities could be the main culprit. (CONTINUED - 170 WORDS)