Iraq and Syria Sign Deal to Revive Cross-Border Oil Pipeline, Aiming to Bypass Strait of Hormuz

WASHINGTON — Iraq and Syria signed a cooperation agreement on Friday to rehabilitate the long-defunct crude oil pipeline linking the Kirkuk region of northern Iraq to Syria's Mediterranean port of Baniyas, in a US-brokered arrangement designed to give Iraqi oil an export route that does not depend on the Strait of Hormuz.

The deal was signed at a US Chamber of Commerce summit in Washington by Bassem Abdul Karim Nasr, head of Iraq's Basra Oil Company, and Youssef Qablawi, chief executive of the Syrian Petroleum Company. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright presided over the ceremony, which came days after Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi met President Donald Trump at the White House.

A route around Iran's chokepoint

For Baghdad, the appeal is strategic as much as commercial. The overwhelming majority of Iraq's crude currently ships south through the Gulf, past a Strait of Hormuz that Iran can threaten to disrupt. A working line to the Mediterranean would open an alternative corridor toward Europe and beyond.

US officials framed the project in exactly those terms. Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and Syria envoy who led the diplomatic push, suggested the wider program of Iraqi pipeline agreements would eventually render the Hormuz chokepoint largely irrelevant. The State Department described the revival as a priority infrastructure project of “bilateral and regional strategic significance,” and said the line would carry an initial two million barrels per day once rehabilitated.

Decades out of service

The pipeline carries a long and politically freighted history. Completed in 1952 with a capacity of roughly 300,000 barrels a day, it was shut by Baghdad during the 1980s after Damascus backed Tehran in the Iran-Iraq war. It sustained heavy damage during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and has been effectively dead ever since.

That history is also a warning about the road ahead. The infrastructure requires extensive reconstruction — new storage tanks, pumps and electrical systems — and regional officials familiar with the plan have cautioned that the line may need to be rebuilt wholesale, on a two-to-three-year timeline rather than a quick refurbishment.

Who is building it

Execution falls to a US-led consortium that includes the energy major Chevron, the Los Angeles-based TI Capital, and the Syrian-Qatari al-Khayyat brothers, investors who have secured a string of major deals across Syria's finance, infrastructure, real estate and aviation sectors.

The pipeline was one piece of a far larger package unveiled during al-Zaidi's visit. Iraqi officials signed preliminary agreements with US firms worth more than $60 billion across energy, healthcare and technology, part of an open-door effort to draw Western investment back into the country.

What to watch

The signing establishes intent, a legal framework and a commercial partner — but not a finished pipeline. Financing terms, security along a route that crosses contested territory, and Syria's still-fragile post-conflict political landscape all remain open questions. Whether the corridor becomes a genuine outlet for Iraqi crude, or a headline that outpaces the concrete on the ground, will depend on how the next two to three years of reconstruction unfold.