Why Makeshift Oil Refineries in Syria Are A Ticking Time Bomb | Risky Business | Insider News
Thousands of backyard oil refineries are scattered across parts of Syria, and displaced residents rely on them for fuel to survive. But working inside these hellish facilities is dangerous - and it's wreaking havoc on the environment. We went to al-Bab, Syria, to find out why these illegal oil refineries are here in the first place, and why they're a necessary evil for the people living in Syria.
00:00 - Introduction | A ticking time bomb
01:13 - A safe haven in Syria
02:03 - Inside the refinery
02:47 - How crude oil becomes fuel
03:15 - Cleaning out the oil drums
04:35 - Injuries from the oil field
05:34 - Health and environmental costs
06:08 - History of the makeshift refineries
08:17 - Why oil is a lifeline here
08:56 - White Helmets: Responding to explosions
10:17 - No other options
11:46 - Ahmed's horse stable
12:15 - Conclusion | Wishing for a liberated Syria
MORE RISKY BUSINESS VIDEOS:
How Toxic Limestone Kilns Are Slowly Killing Workers In Pakistan
• Inside Toxic Limestone...
How Most Of The World's Silver Was Mined From A Mountain In Bolivia For Centuries
• Why The Most Dangerous...
Why Teens In India Hunt For Old Electronics At Toxic Dumps
• Why Teens In India Hun...
------------------------------------------------------
#Syria #Oil #RiskyBusiness
Insider's mission is to inform and inspire.
Visit our homepage for the top stories of the day: www.insider.com/news
Insider News on Facebook: / insidernews
Insider News on Instagram: / insider
Insider News on Twitter: / insidernews
Insider News on Snapchat: / 5185974304
Insider News on TikTok: / insidernews
Why Backyard Oil Refineries in Syria Are A Ticking Time Bomb | Risky Business | Insider News
I like how Ahmed, the boss, acts so concerned for the children he has crawling in crude oil waste and how unhealthy it is for them, but he can’t afford any ppe or ventilation fans even though he has a gated house, 12 horses, a stable, 2 suvs, and the trailers and trucks needed to take those horses to compete
hahaha. That's my thought as well!!!
some gloves and a fan/mask surly wont brack the bank .perhaps its a cultural thing same way poor ppl dont understand littering in gwatamala or india.maby they just need education and opertuinity .or might just be greedy idk.
The icing on the cake is the claim that children from war torn families dont have another choice and a few seconds later we learn that his 16 year old son does it as well...
There was plenty of sparks inside the pyrolysis tanks to know it's NOT highly flammable.
I was more concerned with those children breathing in the volatile organic compounds and particulates. They have their whole lives ahead of them, it’s beyond sad that they could have lasting health issues from not having basic worker safety precautions
Just some quick math here. That man purchases crude for $70/B and sells the resulting products for $100/B. With his 3 refineries producing 1000 Barrels/day, his daily revenue, minus the cost of crude, is $30,000. With a bare minimum profit margin of around 3%, his annual income would be approximately $325K. For reference, the average annual income in Syria as of Dec 2020 was $972. This man is many things-a business man, an entrepreneur, a refugee-but a victim he is not.
I was thinking the same when I saw all the horses etc.. I don't think he's getting near what you suggest, but I think he's still doing pretty well, I'd rather see some of his workers houses etc.. I bet they aren't living that good
He also have to pay the local warlords for “protection” and as said in the report airstrikes can come anytime and destroy his refineries. So he has to keep apart some money to start again.
Prime example of coping and thriving against adversity
During the video they said like at least 5 times they do this dangerous job because the pay is well! You don't have to be poor or starving for being a victim..
@@ggoddkkiller134230 cents a day is good pay over there relax pal the workers don’t get paid well stop you know that please always the victims . You all made your bed lay in it and shush
Petroleum engineer here with a few point based on very limited information -->The sparks inside of the tank should not cause any significant fire hazard as the residues flash point is too high for it to ignite. You cannot even ignite pure diesel fuel with a spark until you heat it up to around 60 °C. -->The liquid flowing from the tank is probably water based on the flow properties (any heavy residue oil would have very high viscosity). My guess is that they don't want to work with the dry residue as is because it makes a lot of dangerous dust when broken down. Spraying it with water makes it less dusty. -->Gasoline produced from this will have an octane rating lower than 60 and it will absolutely obliterate your catalytic converter because of the high sulfur content. Even without the converter it will probably run very poorly. -->Diesel produced will be surprisingly usable just the sulfur content will be off the charts -->Not sure if i even need to state this but these conditions these people work in are absolutely brutal.
There’s a near zero percent chance that those guys run cats on their cars, right?
I was wondering about the shovels scraping on the metal tank.
They do not even lay in grates to aid in solid removal or weld up some decent portals for access that just stupid.. Even Hicks in the sticks with a generator some angle iron and stick welder could fabricate better "refineries".. Hell even a crude continuous process system with water jacket distillation tower could can be fabricated for with minimal resources and cognitive capacity.
A chemist here concurs.
This very same thing happens in The Congo in Africa....the resultant environmental damage is irreversible and made e nearly weep just to watch it...that being said i wouldn't mind some of that diesel..a lot better than we get at the pump here in Australia
"It's super dangerous here, we cannot afford much" - smokes around the oil and makes 6 figures
smoking wont set oil off the flame from the lighter however could.
@@alexlindekugel8727 3:53 spark from pickaxe.
thats how its done lol, if not ask apple
“ I tell every child , stay away …….AND , sorry but I can’t install an adult sized hatch “ lmfao yeah right buddy 😊
😁😁😁
Its ok mate, go watch the video a few more times, eventually someone like you might just manage to understand why🤡
he's the one guy who could keep them away - by simply not paying them. he didn't even bother to shoo the kids away for the announced journalist's visit like most businesses employing child labour all around the world do - that says a lot about how unconcerned he is about it. he didn't even bother to make the kids leave after the reporters got there to limit the video footage. also I bet he's lying about his own son doing that work, that makes very little sense.
I know I know , it’s osha ! Lmfao 😂
Did you see the SPARK at 3:54 ?
"when we arrived there was nothing here" except an orchard and healthy soil. This guy came and completely devastated the area for his own profit.
Playing Devil's advocate here. Firstly, he clearly says that he followed suit so he wasn't the person who initially started the refinery business. Secondly, he owns 3 refineries of the hundreds so he's only a tiny part of the 'problem'. Thirdly, orchards won't earn the amount of money those people need to stay alive.
@@TheShadowOfZamadevils devils advocate. Are you honestly putting petroleum in front of healthy soil and food? Jesus christ on a crutch thats worse than watering your plants with gatorade. 😂
@@batterybuilding In most situations no but in their situation it was probably the right call as an orchard won't earn them the kind of money they need to survive. Dunno what those orchards specialized in, but apples or dades won't earn as much as diesel and gasoline. Agriculture is pretty complex and chances were that all the people who actually knew how to work those orchards had fled. It's a little implied the whole place was deserted the way he frames the situation "when we arrived there was nothing here." Not that it matters because you can't survive on fruits alone so they would need money to trade for stuff like wheat and beans and before you say they could have simply grown that themselves. No, not necesarrily as grounds for orchards aren't necesarily good for growing say wheat and other types of crops and even if those grounds were good they would need to trade for fertilizer and pesticides for scale and to ensure their harvest wasn't lost. Not to mention they would still need to buy fuel for the water pumps. Also fuel is simply easier to find markets for as opposed to agricultural products. I presume their primary trading partner is Turkey and Turkey has plenty of orchards themselves. I don't think Turkey needs Syrian dades for example whereas Syrian oil is probably of interest. Depending on the situation it might very well be that most of those refugees even knew the oil sector better than the agricultural sector. That electrical engineer probably was of more use setting up the refineries than he would have been working in the orchards. Where these people are messing up is by not trying to advance their sector so it becomes more efficient and less polluting. Though the risk of airstrikes probably plays a role in that as I presume the most fancy looking set-up gets bombed first so the cheapest set-up is probably the golden rule in order to restart as easily and quickly as possible should an airstrike occur. Also they should diversify their economy so they aren't completely dependent on oil revenue when oil prices sooner or later fall. Also technically speaking provided these people earn a fair wage they can trade for healthy food and drinking water. It's air pollution these people need to worry about as there don't seem to be much safety equipment in use.
@@TheShadowOfZama Idk the whole region has been messed up for decades for complicated reasons. It's just simply wrong to process those chemicals in that horrible manner. Humans simply shouldn't be forced to destroy the earth yet here we are. Something is seriously wrong.. It's all just so very unfortunate the more you learn about how and why. And I don't offer any solutions either I can only make the observation that there was once healthy land where there is now a cesspit of poison filth that children are forced to work at for pennies. Literally hell on earth. Humans need to do better, all of us.
Gatorade has what plants crave, electrolytes
They are not 55 gallon drums, they are10,000 plus gallon tanks
Yeah, not even 55 cubic meters. more like 550 cubic meters. Wich is quite common size for such operation.
Girls. They know nothing important.
exactly where did 55 gal even come from
@@CringeOMusic someone played a funny on her to see how far it would go
Fake news.
Man is knowingly posioning those kids for his own financial benifit. Corruption exists even in the dredges of society
Lol corruption. It's survival not corruption.
Foods…..
Literally capitalism 101
These are traitors to Syria, they trusted western and israeli intelligence agencies more than their own people, probably got promised power and money after regime change, but are now relegated to this after losing to the legitimate government of Syria.
I feel dumber reading these comments
So he makes 30k a day but can't buy some gloves and respirators for his workers
thats the reason why he is even able to do 30k at all. you dont get more money if you dont screw up other people. respirators cost money. if a child dies, you dont even need to pay the paycheck.
It does not cost that much to buy gloves or respirators.
@@kennythemeat capitalism in an anarchy setting moment.
or he would only make 29900 a day , that is not acceptable
He doesn't make that figure, crude is not the same as refined using primitive refining so don't convert 1 to 1 and count up, also think of all the expenses in a wartorn country that has everything expensive from shortage, the wages that has to be good or nobody will want to risk their health in the job despite not having a better alternative its already remarkable they manage to get these tankers or basic tools to refine, PPE? they don't have a walmart down the street to buy that and they are fortunate enough to sometimes have food aid packages go their way do you even know they struggle to find and get groceries? because if you do you won't care for PPE that much
So they don't cost 50 000 , because you can't buy them, they are literally using old tanker trucks and welding chimney pipes onto it, hence why they blow up. Not designed for tons of heat the metal weakens over time from the fire inside it.
Syrian gov lost control over this land because of ISIL terrorists. This guy is one of them and he is selling the oil to Europe backed by the US that has army bases in that area. He just makes money till there is oil there. Then he will leave and start a new life in the US.
I love how they say the residue in the tanks is highly flammable and at 3:55 you can see sparks fly when they clear the tank out
OSHA dont exist over there
Petroleum engineer here, considering they stop the distillation process at the end of diesel fraction, the flashpoint of the rest of it would be around 70 degrees celsius minimum, which means sparks cannot set it on fire. Also the liquid flowing from it looks like water, if it was from the residue, it would have higher viscosity. Not saying its safe and delicious by any means but at least this part is basically ok when it comes to firehazard. Maybe they distill it off all the way to coke (kinda coal) formation which, when broken down with showels, would produce a lot of dangerous dust. Makes sense to me to spray it with water to make it easier to break down without it being too dusty.
That tiny spark is 1200 C@@gunstercz
@@pasikoljonen2473You need to read up on what a materials flashpoint is and then you'd understand why a single 1200C spark can't ignite it.
They're awfully large for 55 gallon drums 😂😂😂
maybe she meant 55k gallons.
Reporters know nothing about everything.
this guy really expects us to believe that he has a problem with lots of kids working in his refinery camp, when obviously their presence is contingent on him paying them or one of his employees paying them on his behalf? 🤡 I reckon if he didn't want to employ kids, he also wouldn't have had those boilers built with child-size hatches.
Facts they know EXACTLY what they’re doing.
Uhm, those are oil tankers that they dismantle them and use tanks as boilers! So nobody is building boilers with kid size hatches, jesus..
@@ggoddkkiller1342 yeah that didnt make sense at all, esp since adults can obviously fit through the hatches and no company with the capacity to build tanks like this would be stupid enough to design a tank with only child sized hatches, since children can use an adult sized hatch and not the other way around. also the cost difference must be virtually nothing still, this guy has 12 horses lmfao. mf should find a new hobby, like cooking, and feed and buy safety equipment for the kids working for him that he feels so bad for
@@HanTheProphet Those aren't purebred arabian race horses that each of them worth millions of dollars mate! They are just some horses that he takes care of them, perhaps trying to keep arabic horse racing tradition alive. When your country is entirely destroyed such things sometimes mean a lot and im sure local people love it. I agree he could spend the money for making work conditions safer but not like he spends much on those horses.
@@ggoddkkiller1342he has suvs, trailers for horses, and a big house. Hes not even close to middle class or poor
That satellite photo was shocking. “No oil” should protest there.
They wont, a lot of the oil refineries in Syria are under control of US army as it stands right now
@@thesaul9484 not these make shift ones.
Somebody tell no oil protesters that the orange paint they use is made of oil and probably child labor
@@BrokenMedic they support the same organisation as the US controlled ones.
I thought the same...where are the climate change activists? The fumes! And the protests over the plight of these people?
"battling food insecurity" *turns orchard into refinery* Makes sense!
What do you expect them to fuel all the tractors and delivery trucks with? Their entire region was turned into a free-for-all hellhole warzone.
@@KorianHUN Well put the refinery pretty much ANYWHERE ELSE????? Hello? ffs....
Syrian gov lost control over this land because of ISIL terrorists. This guy is one of them and he is selling the oil to Europe backed by the US that has army bases in that area. He just makes money till there is oil there. Then he will leave and start a new life in the US.
@@KorianHUN Lol... you do know this is *OIL* being sold, not *fuel* being used right?
How does Insider continuously manage to make so many mistakes, large and small on almost all of these videos. They are so close to making pretty good informative content, but manage to taint it with slip ups and sometimes straight up lies. (Intentional or not)
cause it's also part of western media propaganda. just look at where this oil refineries taking place, outside Syrian government control areas.
propaganda
capitalkist propaganda @@chrishaywood3154
They're very pro-capitalist so yea they feel genuine sorrow for the man who can't own race horses anymore, that's tragic to rich people.
And the Golan Heights being shown wrong, too...
How do you go through the whole process of making bootleg refineries, but can't for the life of you think to use a screw, or scoop, or any other long handled tool to break up the Coke and remove it with an auger. Without going inside the tanks, and striking/sparking off the steel walls with pickaxes and shovels, not to mention the boss y'know having nice clothes, two cars, and all that.
We all know the answer but we can’t say because biological facts somehow turned “racist”.
And he said he want tje current goverment go😭😭 bro literally worse than the goverment
@@DeathDespairDestruction I mean, he hasn't gunned down protestors. Nor has he used chemical weapons against women and children. So I think "worse than the current goverment", is a slight stretch.
dont forget his offsite stable with his 12 arabian horses lmfao. Oh and dont forget he owns a house that is gated. complete joke. they know exactly what they are doing and they also know how to prey on westerners wallets.
@@robertkeaney9905lmao fr these ppl have no idea about any of this… assad is a dictator that’s the whole reason they are are refugees u’d think they’d at least know why these ppl are displaced
People fail to realize how blessed they are to not live in some of these places in the world.
I've always known it was hell on earth, but I feel bad for the children who couldn't leave if they tried.
Even the Palestinians have it way better (when they are not starting wars with Israel).
@@benenivel1478 Palestinians were living on borrowed time anyway lol
I pretty much have been aware of the state third world countries since I was a child, and do not take any of my liberty or abundance for granted. Life can change in an instant.
for thousands of year it was heaven for civilisation.
Claiming you tell the kids to stay away, while your own son does it, makes me wonder if the situation is so bad, or if he doesn’t care enough to stop them, or if he doesn’t have control.
He's a Jihadist Gangster. The entire NW Syrian under Turkish occupation is run by rival Sunni Gangs and Warlords. Only a Gang Captain would be allowed to own/operate a business of this size.
He simply loves his kids like a man loves a dog, if he loved them as his own kids he sure wouldn't send them to work there, knowing the gov may blow them all up.
@@PatrickBaptist-vv2bg That,,, sounds like a total conspiracy theory.. My point was that he act like it’s their choice to do this, and he’s not responsible for kids putting their heath/safety at risk. He’s deflecting responsibility.
@@FurryEskimo Hmmmm ask me when I get around to caring enough to read after the theory part.
@@PatrickBaptist-vv2bg lol, and just like that my interest in you dropped from minimal to non-existent. You’re impatient and closed minded..
I gotta say, seeing this guy employ so many kids and act like the victim does seem incredibly hypocritical. Maybe The Lion of Damascus isn't the bad guy in this situation
They don't have 650 refineries to have fuel just for themselves. They are selling it.
Thousands of tanker trucks drive back and forth these US annexed lands in Syria and Turkey. Turkey then sells the products to Israel and delivers it via pipeline to them.
Syrian gov lost control over this land because of ISIL terrorists. This guy is one of them and he is selling the oil to Europe backed by the US that has army bases in that area. He just makes money till there is oil there. Then he will leave and start a new life in the US.
2:30 55 gallon metal drum? Come on Insider...
Haha right! Do they not think about what they are reading out?
Yeah that was a big slip, I had to remind it to make sure that's whay she said.
Yes, the whole world operates within logical systems while you live under a rock, dividing random pieces and counting grains; one can easily make a mistake.
I'm not fluent in idiot units, and even I noticed that.
@@Yo_Hahn You don't need to know what a gallon is to know a oil taker holds more than 55 of them.
He is not a victim, he is making a fortune mainly because he employs children and cheap labor, because the people have no choice. 12 horses, your having a laugh, he has a better life than me in uk
Hi life is well off with out Assad already. Of course he wants him to be removed
Compared to the illegal oil refineries in the Niger delta (Nigeria), working in Syria is like working at NASA 😅
i once worked with a dude that said he was a phd of medicine from Bosnia . he was so smart, struggled with English. but he was pulling heavy power cable with me during my apprenticeship . i honestly believe that dude was a doctor.
ok
Quite possible. Not all doctors are equal. I’m in Australia and there are many countries where we don’t accept qualifications. Sometimes you just have to do a year of local training, other places it’s several years of RE-training. Medicine doesn’t stand still. What was an acceptable treatment 10yrs ago could easily be banned today. Hence the need for re-qualifying.
@@mbbb9244But he was a research doctor, not a practitioner. It seems as if he could have minimally qualified for lab assistant work while getting his degree qualifications worked out. Immigrants who flee chaotic political situations, often end up lost and don’t know how to find work that matches their skillset. I see a lot of Latin American immigrants who work in construction or agriculture, who were trained in various white collar roles in their home countries.
I had an instructor in trade school. He was a immigrant from Syria. He was very wealthy and quite possibly a genius. He tested like 99.7-9% on their state exam test and tried to be a Doctor but was too squeamish. They let him change ( which was a rare exception because of his score) to electrical engineer. He was a General manager of a big power utility company. When he fled with his family they told him at the embassy he would need X amount of $ before they would even give him a visa. The most surprising thing to me was when he got here all his experience wasn't valid, something about US companies not acknowledging his credentials or he had no recent experience at US companies, either way he had to get a job at an Amazon distribution center until he found his way into my trade school teaching controls. He was VERY overqualified. He could answer anything and he fought the school to let him teach his way, similar to how they teach in Syria. I honestly believe their education system was better than ours by leaps.
The spark at 3:54 made me flinch.
BMA Clever Eyes!!!
All of the flammable vapors have been distilled out. What's left is water, and bitumen, which doesn't ignite easily.
OMG!
The coke is flammable but it takes some hefty input energy to get it going. You're not setting off the solids with a spark. Needs a blowtorch
lol I was looking for someone else to say the same thing I was thinking. She just said it was highly flammable and you see a spark with his pickaxe.
Dude with the horses probably has more money than majority of Americans lol
As a refinery lab guy, you aren’t getting gasoline directly from distilling crude.
Diesel all day
So all their cars run on diesel?
uuuuuhh yeah I'm pretty sure you do, if you use the right temperatures and separate the correct fraction. of course it's not the same as much more precisely distilled standard consumer gasoline with additives, but those makeshift refineries really do produce fuel that's ready to use, though it probably doesn't run every motor very well. I would guess that it could be common that it does get leaded - I think that's cheaper than adding ethanol, and it might still be standard in a lot of countries in the region.
This is racist to associate Syria with a ticking time bomb!
@@Ass_of_Amalek 110% still leading the fuel and killing the children.
They cook with the crude sediment, you cant make it up. Not a single mention of the h2s in those tanks that will knock you out cold and dead in seconds. Probably has had several deaths on the location.
I used to work for a humanitarian organization in NE Syria, and I remember these makeshift refineries blotting out the sun with acrid black smoke. 😮💨
Speaking of highly flamable stuff just to show the dude with a pickaxe at 3:53 producing a spark, love the humor
3:55 worker strikes the wall of the tank with the pickax sparks come out and nothing ignites so I’m guessing it’s not that flammable
In the US that material would be called coke. Sold for use in power plants overseas.
glad i wasnt the only one who noticed lol
Came looking if somebody had seen it too
It is covered in water
If you saw the water dripping out of the tank, I am guessing that they fill it out with water to reduce the flammability.
Lol this guy wants his cake and eat it too. "I don't want the children to work in the kettles, I tell them to go away", but he employs them to do exactly that anyway.
when they are the only breadwinner for their displaced families with dead fathers, may be you will understand why he is willing to still employ them so they could afford food in a wartorn country where everything is in shortage and expensive.
Its funny how the reporter said 55 gallon drums when those tankers are clearly more then that.
My heart skipped a beat at 3:54 when his pickaxe made a spark
Ah ha! So there IS a way to produce fuel in a post apocalyptic world. And its even absolutely dystopian to match the theme. Next time someone says I can't drive after the zombies, I'll tell them to watch this video.
You can make it pretty easy out of plastic even.
@@AdamBechtol even methane from the zombie corpses
Yeah its that easy once you acquire crude oil. Good luck.
I wonder why some environmentalist types don't go down there and block a highway or two and see how that works out.
Because inconveniencing a rich white man in a rich country with restricted firearms get you more results than inconveniencing a rich brown man in a poor country with access to firearms. Chances are said rich white man is doing business with rich brown man.
because they are paid by same companies. more protesters = higher oil price. Syrian gov lost control over this land because of ISIL terrorists. This guy is one of them and he is selling the oil to Europe backed by the US that has army bases in that area. He just makes money till there is oil there. Then he will leave and start a new life in the US.
crazy how when theyre cleaning the drums the guy with the pick-axe literally hits it so hard it sparks.... 💀💀💀
If you saw they fill it out with water while they are cleaning it, so that it doesn't actually catch on fire.
Love this series.
Tough Life - When i hear stories like these I feel fortunate to be where I am.
Feeling sad for the people of Syria.
Syrian gov lost control over this land because of ISIL terrorists. This guy is one of them and he is selling the oil to Europe backed by the US that has army bases in that area. He just makes money till there is oil there. Then he will leave and start a new life in the US.
There's a great article that exposes how all of this chaos in this region of the world came to be: "The Red Line, and the Rat Line" by Seymour Hersh.
na. we like to hear 'war broke out'. and ignor them pesky details.
literal sparks from the pick inside the oil drums where the worker is cleaning it out
3:54 nice spark you got there inside the burn drum with the pick axe :O
How do they manage to make Ahmed a victim here. Dude's living like a king in that area
Syrian gov lost control over this land because of ISIL terrorists. This guy is one of them and he is selling the oil to Europe backed by the US that has army bases in that area. He just makes money till there is oil there. Then he will leave and start a new life in the US.
I’m glad these green alternatives are available to REPLACE dirty energy refineries in the US, with OSHA and EPA REGS
What are you even trying to get at?
"Highly flammable" 03:54 nice spark...
Enjoyed this a lot
3:53 guy created a spark & things could’ve ended badly right then & there! 💥
Isn't anyone else concerned about the fact that these refineries apparently don't hire any women? It's the current year and we should support the girls working alongside the boys in the oil industry too.
Haha ... funny
Uh dude, its syria
You are a troll xD
That spark at 3:55 made my heart jump a little bit.
3:54 holy crap that spark was terrifying
In an ideal situation If the tanks spin, vibrate and tilt no need for anyone to go inside. And if they do, Put a suit n oxygen mask on. Guys running the places are obviously making enough money. Upgrade and also improve the work zone. Win win
Right? The video have shown an electrical engineer, for them to find a general engineer to help them better the process, and with the money they make, it's possible
That takes a lot more knowledge and engineering though. I doubt they have a steady electric supply, so they need generators as well. And I pretty much doubt they have access to a wide market of readily available components, so they have to do with makeshift anyway.
Thanks, horrific. I knew about these, but not the sheer scale of operation. From a technical viewpoint, the quality will be appalling, the yield of low flash petrol grade will be very low as there is no cracking and no fractionation etc,and as for the health and safety... These people have to do what they can to survive, very sad.
Syrian gov lost control over this land because of ISIL terrorists. This guy is one of them and he is selling the oil to Europe backed by the US that has army bases in that area. He just makes money till there is oil there. Then he will leave and start a new life in the US.
straight from mad max
3:52 the pick striking the steel makes a spark, very scary stuff.
hmmmm @ 2:30 those don't exactly look like fifty five gallon drums maybe 50,000 gallon drums. Or I could just be stupid and forgot how much a gallon is.
“I hate kids working here” “ my 16 year old son works here”. Child labor for profit at its finest.
my heart skipped a beat when there's a spark when he used a pick at 3:54.
3:54 Are those sparks from the pick hitting the metal? imagine if that were to set off some of the vapors that are still flying around in there.
if they used a molten lead heat exchanger to boil the crude oil there self constructed safety hazard would be reduced by the distance from the boiler lots of insulated pipes tho the modern units have refrigeration systems to condense all the vapors that they are wasting via burning under the tank, vapors that get put back in the tank after it cools off causing all the "hard tar" to emulsify and pour out with little to no effort.
things like tires/gaskets/pipe sealant/solvents can be made out of crude oil, but their method of refining is a total loss/waste.
modern industry was still functional selling as low as $18/barrel, not whatever they are selling it for.
Anyone scoffing, this is hard work. You have to give these people credit, this isn't a walk in the park. This isn't some easy 8 hour day behind a desk. Chipping this stuff is backbreaking, and did you notice, NO PNEUMATIC tools, all manual labor.
Who, in your mind, is scoffing.
@@jonathancormack some of the comments I read about how it's easier with power tools or why dont they do this or that. Power tools would cause sparks and they'd blow up. Just a few seem to not know how hard this work would be.
The last sentence tied it all together "nicely"
Mad max level 10 right there
Thank you for this very educational video. Now I understand something about Syria. This video like the ones about Ukraine show the pain, and suffering of war. When will these nightmares end ?
Only if you stop colonization and one country that has been at war for 250 years and make that way money. Syrian gov lost control over this land because of ISIL terrorists. This guy is one of them and he is selling the oil to Europe backed by the US that has army bases in that area. He just makes money till there is oil there. Then he will leave and start a new life in the US.
Going from electrical engineer to makeshift oil refinery worker sounds heartbreaking.
How are they “dirt poor” but can afford $50,000 oil drums?? I’m a kinda wealthy American and I could barely even afford to drop $50,000… if you have access to 50k your not that poor in my book
😱😱😱3:54 ...did i just see a spark when the axe hit the drum???!
In the 60's when I was 11 years old I started working for a framing contractor to help my dad. Mom died years earlier and he was raising 3 boys by himself and working 2 jobs. In my 20's I started my own successful construction business and helped my dad and my brothers even more. You do what you can to help yourself and family. I missed my schooling, but got my GED while I was in the Marine Corps. The confidence I gained while in the service helped me make the decision to get self employed and better myself! Now retired at 70, I look back and realize that I had lived a life full of many adventures that most people could only dream of!
У грабителей банков жизнь гораздо интереснее. Чем ваша. Где только работа на родственников и капиталистов.
@@kotnapromke stay salty commie 🦅🇺🇲🦅🇺🇲🦅🇺🇲🦅🇺🇲🦅🇺🇲🦅🇺🇲🦅🇺🇲🦅
@@kotnapromkeit's a shame you are none of those things. Just poor.
@@kotnapromkeИди делай уроки.
Born in a rich developed stable western country as a white man acting like you made it. 😂
Ahmed is lying about his 30% markup; this is apparent in the lifestyle he affords among so many suffering because of his existence.
I mean yes he is consider wealthy where he’s at but he did build it and risked his life savings for a business
They said he gets a barrel of crude for 70 and sells a barrel of diesel for 100... I'm sure it takes more than 1 barrel crude to get 1 barrel diesel then has to pay staff and everything else. Doesn't add up.
Actually the 30% would make sense considering his volume. 1000 barrels a day is 365,000 barrels a year. 365,000 x $30.00 per barrel is $10,950,000.00 per year. Minus what he pays his staff and any other material costs he incurs. It makes sense he's living good.
You don't need huge margins if you do a large enough volume of business.
@@MrNommerz y'all aren't thinking for more than a minute about this. Where does the residue come from? Thats shite thats left over from your crude oil. You need MORE than one Barrel to produce one Barrel of gasoline/Diesel. Efficient refinieres, which this bloody isn't, get about 75% of gasoline and Diesel from crude oil.
Ahmed .. you are the man...
Appreciate the life u get ,it can be worse than this also
my man is working children to either a horrible death in an explosion or from all sorts of toxin-caused illness. ofc he still regrets none of his previous life choices. Business Insider loves these goofy ahh people. 🤣
@3:55 Who else saw that spark?? 👀 and they wonder why the whole thing explodes
the pick striking a spark in the refining tank at 3:34 😬
That spark at 3:55 😳😳
Controlled by "opposition forces"...so Uncle Sam is nearby and in the area for sure.
at 3:54 my heart actually sank when i saw the sparks created by the pickaxe. no human should have to work in such dangerous conditions
3:54 you can see a spark being made while cleaning out an extremely flammable environment.
3:55 man that spark.....
Everything in the world we live in today is a time bomb 💣
Are you drunk?
I'm a little tipsy and I can confirm that everything infact is a time bomb
@@eldorado1244 people like you don’t think beyond their imagination 💭. They live in a circle ⭕️
What a statement, get this guy a book publisher, philosopher of the century.
Well, "It is 90 seconds to midnight" according to the Doomsday Clock. "You can't fight in here! THIS IS THE WAR ROOM!!!!" - from the movie Dr. Strangelove
I would bet each of those horses eat more in food than his employee's make in a day...
The spark from the pickaxe scared tf out of me 3:53 Ohh hell na
2:30 i never knew 55 gallon drums got so large, and expensive.. 😅😂🤣
Being born in America is like winning the lottery
Unless you are born into certain minorities and places in the US. I am pretty sure folks from West Virginia would say their lot sucks a lot more than many third world countries...
Americans always so proud 😂😂😂
As someone from 3rd world socialist country *YES*
it's frightening to see this happens. To realise 300 years ago child labour in Europe was common place. The jobs that needed a small person were given to children no matter the likelyhood and magnitude of harm. It is hard to judge this refinery without paying conderation to that. Hopefully in less than 200 years it can be can seen there are other ways of doing things, and small access into chambers isn't automatically seen as a child's job. But with other parts of the world, how we all interact, and all that time passing - it is as impossible as a smart phone would seem in the 1700s to picture. for thousands of years if you could pick it up, dig it out, catch it, or pull it from a plant; you would, if it meant you could provide for your people.
Actually due to the civil war syria went backwards.
@@puraLusaYes. And mostly due to US sanctions, and the United States arming ISIS and Al Qaeda to try to destroy Assad's government.
Syria had already banned child labor and knew perfectly well how to run industry without it. It is not 1800 every country in the world can learn at least the vague outlines of industrial processes up to at least the standards of the 1950s and even 1800’s Britain was perfectly capable of running industry without children. Children where used so the business owners could pay them less and so machines could be a few percent smaller due to smaller access volumes. Child labor has never been necessary for industry. It has always and everywhere been a choice and your projected ideas of the “primitiveness” of foreign places does not effect that. Child labor was practiced in the west because the rich and powerful wanted it and ended when the general public and factory workers had enough sway in government and forced the issue. Child labour has re-emerged in Syria shattered government authority. The local elite and people are largely the only power, and so if the local power holders can mantain power and want to use Child labour they simply do.
3:55 making a spark in the crude oil drum
3:54 that spark is all its gonna take to ignite
what's their ESG score?
Syria has proper oil fields. They are just under american 'protectorate '😅.
or the Israeli
This is not a "field", it is a crude refinery. The crude oil may well come from the Kurds.
There are oil and gas fields under Russian occupation and another section under Iranian occupation as well
>this work is dangerous >anyway, I owned 12 horses lmao.
3:55 a spark inside the flammable container. These poor men and boys.
Nice people , doing nice things , in a nice country 😊….kinda doesn’t get better 😮
Syrian gov lost control over this land because of ISIL terrorists. This guy is one of them and he is selling the oil to Europe backed by the US that has army bases in that area. He just makes money till there is oil there. Then he will leave and start a new life in the US.
iono about u, but using metal tools inside those metal containers to get the black material out seems super stupid. things can spark easily. u would think maybe wood tools or something would be better. like metal tools in a metal container filled with highly flammable materials....
I was thinking the same thing!
3:54 you can see a sprak going out of the tool - scary - VERY SCARY DAMN
I’m a simple man if I see Syria 🇸🇾 and Bomb 💣 in the title I click 😊
Love to all the Syrian people from New Zealand 🇳🇿 ❤. Hope some day you will get all your country back. Go home Yankees 👉
The thing that stuck out to me most in the video has nothing to do with gas. You'd think women don't exist there from the lack of their precence in every scene. That tells me all need to know about how they're treated there as well.
We treat our women like princesses. They do not do muscle work. Their job is in the homes and supervising the upbringing of the children. My dear, not everything you see in this report is true. The majority of people do not send their children to work in this dangerous work. They are a few people who have no culture.
Out of touch are we?
Thats the new US terrorist Syria, women still have it good under government control lands.
@@madn1101 We already know how you people treat women in that side of the world. Dont think you can lie to us.
3:54 nice sparks.
Interesting.