ISIL employs thousands of foreign oil workers

Fuel Fix:

According to an Iraq Oil Report story published Monday, the Islamic State militant group at one point employed thousands of workers to keep crude pumping from rudimentary wells captured in the oil fields of Iraq and Syria.

The new report, which details ISIS oil operations that were previously reported to bring in as much as $50 million per month, says records obtained in a U.S. raid on the group show that close to 2,000 workers helped the militants pump cheap crude from more than 200 wellheads across the region.

About 1,600 of those workers came from other countries, with global layoffs in the oil industry and competitive salaries offered by ISIS helping the group’s recruiting efforts, U.S. State Department officials told Iraq Oil Report.

The records released by the U.S. government also show that despite a stepped-up air-strike campaign against ISIS oil infrastructure throughout 2014, the group was still able to keep the crude flowing. Some facilities targeted in air strikes were brought back online after just a few days.

Many wellheads remained operable despite being damaged — natural pressure kept the crude bubbling out of the ground, and workers resorted to open-pit mining to keep some wells producing.

The desperation to maintain the flow of oil was warranted — a State Department official told Iraq Oil Report that the new records show oil revenue making up nearly half of the group’s profits.
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It is hard to imagine who would want to work for these people.  Those workers face the dual danger of having their heads chopped off or getting caught in a coalition air attack on the oil infrastructure.  The price they get for this oil is about a third or less of the current market price.  

The US and its partners needs to do a better job of intelligence gathering on the sources of these workers.