Syria and Iraq are finalizing negotiations on a contract to restore a key oil pipeline between the countries, a Syrian official said on Tuesday, laying out a timeline of around three years to complete the work. Last month, Damascus signed a memorandum of understanding with Baghdad to revive the Haditha-Banias pipeline for transporting oil from Iraq to Syria's coast, linking Iraqi production to export markets in the Mediterranean and beyond. A consortium of three companies including Chevron are set to carry out the project. The US State Department last month welcomed the plan, calling it "of bilateral and regional strategic significance". On Tuesday, Syrian Petroleum Company CEO Youssef Qablawi told a press conference at the Rmeilan oil field in the country's northeast that "negotiations have begun to finalise the contract". He expressed hope that the talks would be completed within three months, followed by engineering studies, procurement and restoration work, expected to take "three years at most". Syrian state news agency SANA said the pipeline, vital for Iraqi oil exports via the Mediterranean, dates to 1952 but went out of service in 2003 after being damaged during the US invasion of Iraq. Qablawi hailed "a vital project" for Syria, putting the pipeline's capacity at "between 1.5 million and 2 million barrels a day" and saying the project would generate significant revenues. The prospect of a pipeline link to the Mediterranean via Syria has gained new urgency with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz -- a vital maritime route for Gulf oil and gas exports -- as a result of the Middle East war. The closure of Hormuz has hit Iraqi oil exports hard, and in April Baghdad said it began shipping crude through Syria by truck to circumvent the strait. Syria's new authorities, who ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, have been seeking to reboot the country's economy and revive its infrastructure and institutions after more than a decade of war. Damascus now controls all the country's oil and gas fields, after taking over areas previously under Kurdish control in the north and northeast earlier this year, including Rmeilan. Texas-based firm HKN Energy is operating the fields in the northeast under a contract signed with Damascus. At Rmeilan, the company's president, Mark Rollins, said Tuesday that "this is one of Syria's most important oil fields", adding: "Our team has been here on the ground for about two months." Qablawi said HKN Energy was in charge of repairing existing wells and drilling new ones. Syria aims to produce one million barrels of oil per day by 2030 and is seeking to broaden international cooperation on exploration and production. Qablawi said Syria's own oil production was currently between 100,000 and 110,000 barrels a day, but was projected to reach 250,000 by the end of next year.
