American Operator at Rmeilan
An American oil and gas company, HKN Energy, has begun field operations at the Rmeilan oilfields in Hasakah governorate in northeastern Syria, in what is described as one of the largest moves in the country's oil sector in years. Work started on the ground around 12 June 2026, days after a 9 June 2026 meeting set out the terms of the agreement and the handover of operations.
The arrangement rests on a 25-year investment contract covering the rehabilitation and management of production at Rmeilan, which holds more than 1,300 wells and represents the largest single concentration of oil in Syria.
How Output Is Divided
Under the contract, production is split three ways: 60 percent to the American operator, 32 percent to the state-owned Syrian Petroleum Company, and 8 percent to a local oil-services company operating in the region.
The deal places a privately held operator — one whose existing activity is concentrated in Iraqi Kurdistan, with offices in the United States and the Kurdistan region — at the center of a strategic Syrian asset.
A Field Past Its Peak
Rmeilan once anchored Syrian crude output. Before 2011 it produced between 180,000 and 200,000 barrels per day, roughly half of national production. By February 2026 daily output had fallen to between 70,000 and 80,000 barrels, after earlier readings above 110,000 barrels per day.
The contract is framed as a gradual program of drilling, production, and technical and security work intended to keep output flowing, the operator pledging to maintain it "according to international standards of safety and efficiency."
Stakes for the Oil Sector
Oversight of the sector in the areas concerned rests with Shahuz Hassan, who manages oil affairs in the autonomous administration's territory. The length of the commitment — a quarter century — points to an effort to stabilize and modernize a field whose output has more than halved since the start of the last decade.
For a Syrian economy that has drawn only limited foreign investment in its energy sector, the entry of a foreign operator into a major producing field is an early test of whether external capital will re-engage with the country's oil infrastructure.