Contracts With Syria-related Oil Companies

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

All contracts (and their amendments), memorandums of understanding, intergovernmental service agreements, and any agreements of any sort entered into by the Defense Logistics Agency between October 1, 2017 and October 8, 2020, for all services, equipment, and activities involving/provided by/contracted for regarding Delta Crescent Energy, LLC, Global Development Corporation (GDC) Inc., GulfSands Petroleum Plc or any other oil company which is reported to have interests in Syria's oil fields.

In October 2017, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) took control of Al-Omar oil field in Deyr al-Zour Province, which is the largest oil field in Syria. Since then there have been multiple reports about purported oil deals between US companies and the Kurdish-led administration.

Responsive materials should include but not be limited to:

• the initial Invitation to Bid, Request for Proposal, or equivalent call for contractors
• the responsive materials provided by the winning bidder
• all other vendor responses
• all evaluation material, scorecards, reports, and notes generated in the selection process
• the current contract
• all exhibits
• all amendments
• all invoices/receipts detailing compensation received as a result of any agreements
• all agreements related to the provision of services, such as water and sewage
• all financial agreements (such as loans or bonds) entered into as a result or in association with any of the aforementioned agreements

On July 30, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that an unnamed American company was "in implementation" of a deal to work on northeastern Syria's oil industry. (https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/take-oil-american-oil-company-finally-gets-syrian-oil-deal-165902) Soon after, it was reported that Delta Crescent Energy, LLC was the company in question. (https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/07/us-oil-company-deal-syria-kurds-kobani-turkey-russia-sdc-sdf.html)

Delta Crescent Energy, LLC is a limited liability corporation incorporated in the state of Delaware on February 8, 2019.

The company is registered at the following address: CORPORATION TRUST CENTER 1209 ORANGE ST, WILMINGTON, DE 19801.

We are seeking expedited processing of our request pursuant to 5 U.S.C.§ 552(a)(6)(E) because there is an urgency to inform the public concerning actual or alleged Federal Government activity.

President Donald Trump had stated in October and November 2019 that U.S. military forces are to remain in Syria "only for the oil" and that they "may have to fight for the oil." At least two U.S. service members have died in Syria since he made these statements.

Foreign countries have condemned the U.S. presence since Secretary Pompeo's July 30 statement. The Turkish foreign ministry called any U.S. move to extract Syrian oil "utterly unacceptable" (https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-slams-us-over-oil-deal-with-ypg-in-syria-157090), while the Syrian government denounced the rumored deal as "an assault against Syria’s sovereignty" and "a continuation of the U.S. hostile approach towards Syria" (http://www.sana.sy/en/?p=198923).

Furthermore, it was reported on August 3, 2020 that the Syrian Kurdish administration were claiming not to have signed any contracts with an American company, calling into question the accuracy of Secretary Pompeo's claims. (https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/did-mike-pompeo-mislead-congress-about-syrias-oil-166158).

Therefore, this request concerns a Federal government activity in a matter of current exigency to the American public because U.S. troops are risking life and limb to protect Syrian oil and because U.S. Government officials may have misled Congress about the situation of said oil. The public has an urgent need to know as much as possible about Delta Crescent Energy, LLC's relationship with the U.S. Government and with U.S. Government activities in Syria. The same applies to any other company that is planning to extract or export Syrian oil.

Federal courts have recognized the public's interest in breaking news, which "conveys information the public wants quickly,” “would lose value if it were delayed" (Am. Civil Liberties Union of N. Cal., 2006 WL 1469418 at *6.), and may have an "impact" on the public's political decision-making (Id. at *7).

Syria policy certainly could impact the public's political decision-making process. The Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria in October 2019 caused several congressional hearings and an high volume of news coverage. The public would undoubtedly have an interest in understanding further developments in U.S. policy in the same region of Syria, especially before the November 2020 elections.

As SyriaUntold (www.syriauntold.com), a European Endowment for Democracy (EED)-funded Syria-focused journalistic platform, we are also seeking expedited processing of our request pursuant to 5 U.S.C.§ 552(a)(6)(E) because not doing so "could reasonably be expected to pose a threat to the life or physical safety of an individual". In particular, a wave of assassinations has targeted Arab tribal leaders in the last months in eastern Syria, in an escalation that could be linked to undisclosed details of the aforementioned deal with Delta Crescent Energy. The announcement of this purported deal, whose details are still obscure, have prompted the Syrian Democratic Forces' regional competitors (Turkey and the Syrian government) to condemn it. All these players are likely to ramp up hostile activities against the Kurdish-led administration by mobilising segments of the population who feel excluded from the beneficiaries of a deal signed behind closed doors. Hence, the importance of transparency and of our investigation on oil deals and related contracts for security services. The aim of our project is in fact to inform Syrian and international audiences. The Syrian public has an urgent need to understand a deal that concerns the future of their country's natural resources, and to identify the beneficiaries of such agreement.

We are a team of international and Syrian journalists working on this story, and we are requesting this information in that editorial capacity. The outcome of this work will be published in English and Arabic, and shared across multiple platforms on traditional and social media. SyriaUntold has collaborated with several other regional and international media platforms, including OpenDemocracy, the Network of Iraqi Reporters for Investigative Journalism, Pan Arab Al-Hayat newspaper and UPI press agency. According to a 2017 study published by the SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom at the Samir Kassir Foundation, SyriaUntold stood out as one of the most accurate Syrian outlets for its attention to multiple sourcing in its stories. In addition to expedited processing, we request to be properly classified as a news media requester.

If you have any questions about our media status, please contact us.

We are willing to pay fees, if necessary, but we also believe that we qualify for a fee waiver.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

SyriaUntold

Dear Ms Brown,

Apologies for not replying sooner but unfortunately we did not receive any notification about your response from Muckrock. I hope you will consider this FOIA request to be still open in spite of the deadline you indicated in your last email. We also sent you an identical email on Tuesday, to the address you provided in your last email.

Perhaps we could narrow down our request to Delta Crescent Energy LLC? Our aim is to obtain all contracts and any agreement of any sort entered into by the Defense Logistics Agency between October 1, 2017 and October 8, 2020, for all services, equipment, and activities involving/provided by/contracted for regarding Delta Crescent Energy LLC. Specifically, we are referring to services, equipment and activities for their operations in Syria. If it helps, we could narrow down further the timespan of our request to include only the period between January 1, 2019 and October 8, 2020.

I am afraid we don't have details about vendors, exhibits and amendments. We could add further details about the US security firms that might be supplying services to Delta Crescent for its Syria operations but our understanding is that the Defense Logistics Agency might not hold information about them.

Please excuse us for any possible inconsistency. We are not US residents and therefore we might not have a full understanding of the specific competencies of certain US government agencies.

Please use the following email addresses for future communications. info@syriauntold.com or roberta@syriauntold.com .

Thanks for your understanding

Best regards,
Roberta
--
----------------------
SYRIA UNTOLD
حكاية ما انحكت

Thanks for your reply Ms Brown,

We just received it in a separate email. We are sorry to hear that our FOIA request has been closed due to the aforementioned expired deadline.

Thanks for offering to open a new one. Please let us know if we should file a new request from our side. We would prefer to keep the process via Muckrock if possible (the issue of missing notifications seems to have been solved. It was a technical glitch from their side).

Thanks

Best

Dear all,

We would like to appeal to the "no records" response we received on Feb. 21 via email (attached). We question the thoroughness of the search and would like to see an appeal officer appointed for this purpose. The updated FOIA request number was DLA-2021-000618. The officer in charge was Shirley Brown.

Delta Crescent Energy is the only US oil firm officially active in Syria and it is likely to have interacted with DLA or other DOD sub-agencies. A quick search on Beta.sam.gov shows that DLA was awarding contracts for the provision of fuel to CENTCOM troops in Syria over the same period of time. Delta Crescent Energy is therefore a business entity DLA might be familiar with.

Thanks for your cooperation

Best

Dear all,

We haven't received any update on this FOIA request.

Best