The European Union's decision Friday to ban oil exports from Syria is unlikely to significantly impact oil prices as Syrian supplies are small and the season for the products refined from the crude is nearly over, oil traders and analysts told Dow Jones Newswires.

Syrian crude oil exports amount to just 150,000 barrels a day, most of which is heavy crude, and much harder to refine into high value products such as gasoline. This compares to Libya , which was exporting around 1.3 million barrels a day of high quality crude before violence broke out in February.

"That tells you why those sanctions on Syria are not making the same impact as the ones on Libya ," said Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank.

Syrian crude is often used to produce bitumen, a material used in construction and road maintenance. Traders said that with the end of the bitumen season, the impact of the Syrian sanctions could also diminish.

"The bitumen season goes from April/May to September/October...After that I don't see much impact," said one trader.
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