Iraq signs deals with Western oil firms, including to revive Syria pipeline

Deal with Chevron aims to rebuild a crude oil pipeline that runs from Iraq’s oil-rich Kirkuk to Syria’s Baniyas.

Iraq’s government has struck dozens of agreements with Western oil companies, including to restore an energy supply route Baghdad could use to export its oil without the Strait of Hormuz.

The preliminary deals, signed at a United States-Iraq business summit at the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington on Friday, come as Baghdad seeks to move away from dependence on the Strait of Hormuz, where transit has been heavily disrupted due to the US-Israel war against Iran.

Iraq and Syria signed a cooperation agreement to reconstruct the long-defunct Iraq-Syria crude oil pipeline, which runs from the oil-rich Kirkuk region in northern Iraq to Syria’s Mediterranean port of Baniyas.

Iraq’s state news agency reported that major US energy company Chevron would carry out the project under the agreement.

In a statement, the US Department of State said it welcomed Iraq and Syria’s plan to rehabilitate the pipeline, which it said a “US-led international consortium” would “execute the technical and financial aspects” of.

“Upon rehabilitation, this groundbreaking project will have an initial transport capacity of ۲ million barrels per day of crude oil,” said the State Department. It called the pipeline “a critical energy corridor linking Iraqi oil production to Mediterranean export markets and beyond”.

‘Make Hormuz an afterthought’

US ambassador to Turkiye Tom Barrack said Iraq’s latest oil pipeline agreements would lead to a programme “that will make the Strait of Hormuz an afterthought”.

In addition to the Syria pipeline project, Chevron signed two other agreements with Iraq focused on boosting oil production, said the company’s president of corporate business development, Jake Spiering.

Iraq’s government also signed an ⁠official agreement with ⁠Starlink, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to operate ‌formally in the country, reported Iraqi state media.

In total, Iraqi officials’ initial agreements with US firms, spanning the fields of energy, healthcare and technology, are worth more than $۶۰bn, reported the Reuters news agency.

“We are using an open-door policy,” Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi ⁠said through a translator at the Washington summit. “Everybody who has a project can come and talk to us. We will not make it difficult for anyone.”