Arnous said on Sunday that the targeting of the two tankers in the Red Sea led to “the delay of their arrival for more than a month, and as a result of which the Banias refinery stopped production and a shortage in the quantities of oil derivatives required to meet the country’s needs.”
The Syrian prime minister, however, did not specify who has been behind the attacks.
According to him, Syria will import more crude oil to cover fuel shortages caused by the Western sanctions that disrupted regular Iranian oil shipments, Reuters reported.
The sanctions-hit country has over the past year faced months of gasoline and fuel shortages, forcing it to ration supplies distributed across government-held areas and to apply several rounds of steep price hikes.
Arnous said his country now produced only 20,000 bpd with around 400,000 bpd lost from oil fields in northeastern Syria now under the control of US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spearheaded by the Kurdish Syrian YPG militia.
“We have become dependent on imported oil and we have used up foreign currency in large amounts to pay for petroleum products,” Arnous told deputies in a speech to Parliament.
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