Turkey-Syria LPG Shipments & The Lebanon Link

25 Nov 2022 Issue: 65 / 47 By: Noam Raydan

Syria is receiving clandestine cargoes of LPG from Turkey with vessels ostensibly heading to Lebanon in fact delivering cargoes to the Syrian terminal of Baniyas despite ongoing international sanctions banning the supply of energy products. MEES examines how the practice is being carried out.

The ‘Yooshi Dooda’ (IMO 8817693) must be among the busiest Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) tankers operating in the East Mediterranean, regularly moving between the Turkish Mediterranean port of Dörtyol and Syria since April, according to vessel tracking data and satellite images. Its trips to Syria, however, have been conducted clandestinely, with the gas carrier falsely signaling for Lebanon’s port of Beirut to obfuscate its Syrian destination. Delivery of energy products to Syria is in breach of international sanctions.

Lebanon— a tiny market dependent on imported refined products— shipped in over 200,000 tons of LPG in 2020. Imports so far this year (to early November), however, have been well below that figure, with 2022 on course for a sharp fall as the country’s acute financial crisis has caused a sharp rise in fuel prices due to the huge devaluation of the Lebanese pound against the dollar. (CONTINUED - 1577 WORDS)