TURKEY PULSE: The truth about Turkey and Islamic State oil

Smugglers on the Turkish side of the border often do not know whether they are buying oil from ISIS sources. As Tolga Tanis, a Washington-based Turkish journalist, noted, “Oil changes hands so quickly that buyers do not know that they are getting oil that originates from IS.” In addition, as Tastekin reported, smugglers in Hacipasa, a Turkish village near the Syrian border, “prefer to think of the Free Syrian Army, not IS, as benefiting from the trade.”

The key question is how much of an illegal trade is there? The New York Times cited experts who placed the figure “at $1 million to $2 million a day.” Speaking to Al-Monitor, a presidential adviser who preferred to remain anonymous dismissed this claim. He said, “This is impossible. A barrel of oil would be sold for about $50 on the black market. This means 400,000 barrels of oil a day passing illegally from Iraq or Syria to Turkey. Yet, such an amount is impossible to carry by any of the smuggling methods, such as hoses, trucks or mules. There is indeed smuggling on the Turkey-Iraq and Turkey-Syria borders, but certainly not at these levels.” …. http://www.al-monitor.com