Airstrikes reducing oil revenues for ISIS, report says
The U.S.-led airstrikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) might not have eradicated the extremist group, as President Obama vowed to do. But at least the operation has interrupted the flow of oil money to the militants, according to an analysis in Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Based on details from an IEA report, the magazine says:
Though the airstrikes have failed to keep Islamic State from advancing in the field, they have apparently succeeded in dismantling its sophisticated oil network, reducing the movement’s ability to make gasoline and diesel for its tanks and trucks and cutting off a vital source of funding. A report from the International Energy Agency in Paris has just estimated that Islamic State controls only about 20,000 barrels of daily oil production, down from about 70,000 as of August. Most of it remains in Iraq.
As BusinessWeek reported in September, at the time, when ISIS had seized oil fields and refineries in swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, the group was bringing in up to $2 million a day from stolen oil.
