Petroleum Minister to PA: losses in oil sector reached $ 58 billion during crisis

DAMASCUS – People’s Assembly discussed in its session on Tuesday, headed by Speaker Mohammad Jihad al-Laham the performance of the Electricity Ministry and the Petroleum and Mineral Resources’ Ministry.

The MPs asserted the importance of solving the problem of breaking off the electricity for long hours in the provinces of Hama, Aleppo, Lattakia and Homs in addition to coordinating between the ministries of Electricity and Water Resources to insure providing water to all citizens, SANA reported.

 For his part, Minister of Electricity Imad Khamis reviewed the situation of the electric power in light of the terrorist war targeting Syria, clarifying that the ministry concentrates on the qualitative measures and exceptions to preserve the electricity sector and on continuing the development process during and after the crisis.

He pointed out that the Ministry has four enormous projects in power generation sector including a 750 megawatt – Deir Ali 2 station, Derir Ali 3 station, the project of expanding the 450 megawatt – Jandar station and a Power Generating Station at the Syrian coast.

The Minister highlighted that the amount of the generated power during the current conditions ranges between 1500- 1800 megawatt distributed to all provinces.

Hasaka city, according to Khamis, is supplied now with 70 megawatt after a number of Energy conversion stations have gone out of service due to terrorist acts.

In turn, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Sleiman al-Abbas affirmed that the value of the direct and indirect losses inflicted on the petroleum sector in Syria has reached USD 58 billion until now, asserting that the ministry has put a specific strategy since the beginning of the crisis in Syria to handle with what is available.