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I've read (on the telegraph website) that ISIS receives £1.8m per day from their oil fields. It seems by targeting the oil fields, ISIS would lose that income.

  • Are these oil fields being targeted?
  • If yes why is ISIS still being able to export oil?
  • Is there a way to effectively shut down these oil fields?
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  • @user2910074 they dont act effectively against ISIS, because they dont want to annihilate isis (By they, I mean those who user4012 nemes "we"). US need it, turkey need it, ....
    – user 1
    May 9, 2016 at 8:23

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Lately, the US military started to attack IS-controlled oilfields directly.

The United States and its allies have sharply increased their airstrikes against the sprawling oil fields that the Islamic State controls in eastern Syria in an effort to disrupt one of the terrorist group’s main sources of revenue, American officials said this week.

For months, the United States has been frustrated by the Islamic State’s ability to keep producing and exporting oil — what Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter recently called “a critical pillar of the financial infrastructure” of the group — which generates about $40 million a month, or nearly $500 million a year, according to Treasury Department estimates.

Source: NYTimes

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First of all, we have bombed them. Or, at least, the refineries:

The US and allied partners struck oil refineries held by the extremist group calling itself the Islamic State on Wednesday, the Pentagon said. (src: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-bombs-isis-oil-fields-2014-9)

Why not oil fields?

  1. Bombing an oil field is a pretty environmentally unfriendly thing.

    The powers that be in White House are extremely environmentally conscious and place a great deal of emphasis on that in their policy decisions.

  2. Presumably, Iraquis (assuming the oil field in Iraq) would object to having their energy infrastructure permanently destroyed. They would likely prefer to be able to generate revenue from that oil field once ISIS is gone

... and now that Russians are finally playing the game, oil fields are finally being targeted:

For the first time, the United States and Russia conducted combined airstrikes on an Islamic State-controlled oil field in Raqqa in eastern Syria, a major part of a half a billion dollar crude industry sustaining the jihadist group, the Sunday Express reported.
US operations officer Major Michael Filanowski confirmed the destruction of the ISIS-controlled oil field to reporters in Iraq on Sunday.
(src: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/us.russian.jets.team.up.for.first.time.to.destroy.isis.oil.field.pipelines.in.syria/68628.htm)

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    Again, who are the we ?
    – Bregalad
    Nov 13, 2015 at 10:21
  • @Bregalad - since the question wasn't terribly clear on that, presumably anyone who's fighting ISIS. Which by this specific date, seems to be mostlt USA and now RF (Arab states basically stopped in favor of resources spent in Yemen)
    – user4012
    Nov 13, 2015 at 14:16

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