Al-Thawra: Syrian-Chinese Oil Company opens HQ in northeast

Syria's Minister of Oil and Mineral Resources Ibrahim Haddad, inaugurated on Thursday the headquarters of Al-Kawkab, the Syrian-Chinese Joint Oil Company near Jabasa fields in Hasaka governorate in northeast Syria.

The minister noted in a statement to al-Thawra paper that the company, which was established last year, had exerted efforts to develop and fix a number of oil fields and wells there.

"We have developed the old Gbaiba oil field due to production decrease and threat of big decrease. The field is now producing 10,000 B/D while its production was 6000 B/D," the minister said adding that the plan was aimed to increase production to 12000 B/D during the coming three years.

Six oil wells have been dug till now horizontally, and 12 others fixed in the field. Haddad noted that four contracts were inked to develop Gbaiba, Ouda, Tishrin and Shiekh Mansour fields.

Regarding oil exploration sites, the minister said 27 sites were explored and there was an open tender for 9 sites to choose the best offer.

"We now have a new plan to build the third refinery in Deir al-Zour, in the northeast. It will have the capacity of 140,000 Barrel/day," he said.

Yang, the Chinese president of the company, expected in a statement that the entire production of the field will be in three years one million tones annually, noting that the current production do not exceed 30,000 tones.