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Source: PennEnergy

BAGHDAD (AP) — The Islamic State rakes in up to $50million a month from selling crude from oil fields under its control in Iraq and Syria, part ofa well-run industry that U.S. diplomacy and airstrikes have so far failed toshut down, according to Iraqi intelligence and U.S. officials.

Oil and gas sales —the extremists' largest single source of continual income — are a key reasonthey have been able to maintain their rule over their self-declared"caliphate" stretching across large parts of Syria and Iraq. With thefunds to rebuild infrastructure and provide the largesse that shore up itsfighters' loyalty, it has been able to withstand ground fighting against itsopponents and more than a year of bombardment in the U.S.-led air campaign.

The group has even been able to bring in equipmentand technical experts from abroad to keep the industry running, and the UnitedStates has recently stepped up efforts to close off this support.

Washington has been talking to regionalgovernments, including Turkey, about its concerns over the importing of energyinfrastructure into IS-run territory in Syria, including equipment forextraction, refinement, transport and energy production, according to a seniorU.S. official with firsthand knowledge of the IS oil and gas sector.

Speaking to The Associated Press in Washington, hesaid international actors in the region were intentionally or unintentionallyaiding this effort and called IS' management of its oil fields"increasingly sophisticated," something that has helped the groupslow down the degradation of its infrastructure from U.S. bombing raids. Hespoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to thepress.

IS sells the crude to smugglers for discountedprices, sometimes $35 per barrel but as low as $10 a barrel in some cases,compared to just under $50 a barrel on international markets, four Iraqiintelligence officials told the AP in separate interviews. The smugglers inturn sell to middlemen in Turkey, they said. The oil used to besmuggled in fleets of giant tankers but, fearing airstrikes by the U.S.-ledcoalition, smaller tankers are being used now. The Iraqi officials spoke oncondition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press.

The Islamic State group is believed to beextracting about 30,000 barrels per day from Syria, smuggled to middlemen inneighboring Turkey. In Iraq, they produce around 10,000-20,000 barrels per day,mostly from two oilfields outside Mosul, Ibrahim Bahr al-Oloum, a member ofIraq's parliamentary energy committee and a former oil minister, toldthe AP. But he said much of the Iraqi production is not sold and instead sentto Syria to makeshift refineries the group has set up to produce fuel products.

In total, the group is believed to make $40-$50million a month from sales, the Iraqi officials said. A report by the IslamicState's Diwan al-Rakaaez — its version of a Finance Ministry — seen by the APin Baghdad shows that revenues from oil sales from Syria alone lastApril totaled $46.7 million. The IS "finance ministry" report put at253 the number of oil wells under IS control in Syria, saying 161 ofthem were operational. Running the wells were 275 engineers and 1,107 workers,it said.

Turkey's prime minister's office said in astatement to the AP that it has taken steps to tighten border security and"has effectively stopped oil smuggling" across the border.It said that as of the end of September it had prevented 3,319 acts ofsmuggling from Syria and that since 2011 it seized more than 5.5 million litersof oil in anti-smuggling operations. It did not comment on U.S.efforts to stop oil equipment and experts from entering Syria fromTurkey.

Daniel Glaser, a U.S. Treasury official, estimatedIS oil revenues at around $500 million a year, based on evidence theymade around $40 million in one month in early 2015. The group is also believedto rake in hundreds of millions of dollars a year from "taxes" oncommercial activities in the areas it rules, said Glaser, who is assistantTreasury secretary for Terrorist Financing in the Office of Terrorism andFinancial Intelligence.

That income is on top of the money that themilitants first looted from the Iraqi central bank branch in the city of Mosulwhen they seized it in the summer of 2014 and other bank branches, which"at the time was thought to be anywhere between $500 million dollars to upto $1 billion," Glaser told the AP.

The Iraqi officials said some oil wasalso smuggled into Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region. But Ali Hama Salih, amember of the Iraqi Kurdish parliament who follows trade out of IS-run areas,denied the group was smuggling oil into Iraqi Kurdish areas, saying"there are no documents to prove Daesh is selling oil throughhere," using an Arabic acronym for the group. It is easier, he said, forIS to move the smaller amounts it produces in Iraq into Syria.

Still, there is other trade into Kurdish regions.Salih said authorities in the regional government in Iraqi Kurdistan haverecently arrested 15 people, including military officials and businessmen, onsuspicion of doing business with IS.

So far, the campaign of Russian airstrikes in Syriathat began last month has not hit IS oil infrastructure, though thenearly year-old U.S.-led air campaign has on occasion. In Iraq, airstrikes andground offensives have had a greater effect in grinding downthe oil industry.

In March, the militants were driven out of a majoroilfield outside the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Fear of airstrikes ispreventing IS administrators from exploiting another large oilfield near Sinjarin northern Iraq, though production teams are sent there occasionally toquickly pump out oil and leave, the Iraqi intelligence officialssaid.

Still, little has hurt the sophisticated industrythat the IS group has built up around oil production.

The Islamic State runs a network of small,rudimentary refineries set up in trailers whose output partially satisfiesdomestic needs. Turkish and Kurdish maintenance crews travel overland intoIS-held territory under heavy security to work on the wells and the refineries,according to the Iraqi officials. Also, senior officials from Iraq'sstate-owned, northern-based oil companies have been employed by IS,the officials said.H

ashem al-Hashemi, a prominent Iraqi expert on theIslamic State, said Iraqi oil engineers are given a daily rate of$300, rising to nearly $1,000 when they deal with technical problems.

Two of the Iraqi intelligence officials said asenior IS member they identified as Haji Diaa was in charge of thegroup's oil operations and is the point man in dealing with Turkishand Kurdish engineers. The officials refused to provide further informationabout him.

Those buying the oil often wire thepayments to female IS members in Istanbul and Ankara — on the presumption thatwomen will draw less attention — and the money is later hand-carried into Iraqor Syria, said one of the officials, the head of one of Iraq's top counterterrorism agencies.

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