Most of the oil is sold to small, privately owned refineries, usually do-it-yourself operations that have sprung up near the "nodding donkey" pumps that dot the landscape in northeastern Syria. They are operated mostly by civilians unaffiliated with Islamic State. They take the crude directly from the wellhead, refine it and sell the inferior product on black markets. They are typically local people whose prior livelihoods were destroyed by the fighting.
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