Crude Deal Nears Completion
Iraq has asked Syria to help move its crude oil across Syrian territory for export, expanding an arrangement that already sends Iraqi fuel oil to the Syrian coast. The head of the Syrian Petroleum Company, Youssef Qablawi, said the agreement is nearly finalized.
Qablawi said crude trucking should begin "as soon as possible," with the first truckloads expected to reach Syria by mid-October 2026.
Route Through Baniyas
Under the plan, crude oil would be trucked overland to the Syrian coast, where the Syrian Petroleum Company would provide storage tanks at Baniyas. Tankers would then load the oil at the port and carry it to export markets.
The route gives Iraqi crude an overland path toward the Mediterranean that sidesteps the contested shipping lanes of the Gulf.
Trucks Already Rolling
About 1,000 trucks a day currently carry Iraqi fuel oil through Syria, and the number of crude trucks is expected to match or exceed that flow. Iraq began routing fuel oil through Syrian territory in early April 2026, after shipping through the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz was disrupted.
Roughly 650,000 metric tons a month were contracted for April through June, with about 500,000 tons a month scheduled to reach Baniyas. The port was unloading close to 500 Iraqi trucks a day by May.
Pipeline on the Horizon
The trucking push runs alongside a longer-term plan to rebuild a cross-border pipeline. On 18 July 2026, Syria and Iraq signed two memorandums of understanding to rehabilitate the Haditha-Baniyas line, with a separate memorandum covering technical and financial studies.
Construction could begin in the first quarter of 2027, with the project still in initial engineering design. The earlier Kirkuk-Baniyas line ran about 800 kilometers and once carried up to 300,000 barrels a day before it stopped operating.
Why Iraq Turned North
Before the recent shipping disruptions, Iraq exported about 3.5 million barrels a day through the Gulf. Security concerns have pushed Baghdad to seek alternative routes to market, including overland options through Turkey and Syria.
For Syria, the transit traffic brings fresh activity to the port at Baniyas and positions the country as a renewed outlet for regional oil.