DAMASCUS, Oct 24: Syria is struggling to ease chronic petrol and diesel shortages caused by rampant smuggling to neighbouring countries amid soaring world oil prices. Smugglers have been cashing in on the wide disparity between state-subsidized fuel in oil-producing Syria and high prices in its oil-importing neighbours — Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

“There is a huge price differential so we are finding weak souls anxious to smuggle and rob public funds and ordinary people,” Oil Minister Ibrahim Haddad was recently quoted as saying in the local state press.

“They are exploiting the state subsidy of these two products and have undertaken smuggling to neighbouring countries to gain quick profits at the expense of the citizen.”

Fuel prices are heavily subsidized in Syria, a country of 18 million where the socialist government fixes prices and is the biggest job provider.

Twenty litres of petrol in Syria costs $10 at the pump. Twenty litres of diesel costs $3.

Syria’s state oil distributor is pumping extra supplies onto the market and shoring up border controls to try to stamp out the black market after drivers were left queuing at petrol stations only to find the pumps had run dry.

Consumers said shortages affecting almost 2,000 petrol stations across the country had begun to ease.

“We increased supplies to petrol stations and the authorities tightened their anti-smuggling campaign,” a source at the state petroleum products distribution monopoly said.

Syria, which produces over four million tons annually of petroleum products from its nearly 450,000 bpd of crude oil, has been forced to import 2.4 million tons of diesel so far this year to meet the spike in demand, officials told Reuters.

Figures released by the oil ministry show an eight per cent rise in diesel supplied to petrol stations by the end of July.

Gasoline consumption rose by 14 per cent by July this year compared to the same period of the previous year, they showed.

Energy officials say plans to reduce gasoline and diesel imports require extra refining capacity, now around 250,000 bpd, and increased natural gas production.

Meanwhile, local papers carry comments from frustrated locals complaining about shortages that have driven them to hoarding and fed a thriving black market.

They report the ingenuity of smugglers along the border with Lebanon, citing one racket that used a three km pipe from a hilltop to send diesel to the other side of the border.—Reuters