Iraq signs pipeline deal with Syria to reroute oil exports through the Mediterranean

Iraq and Syria just formalized an agreement to rebuild a pipeline that has been collecting dust since the 2003 Iraq invasion. The memorandum of understanding, signed on July 17 during a US-Iraq business summit in Washington, D.C., covers the rehabilitation of the Kirkuk-Baniyas crude oil pipeline, a route stretching from northern Iraq to Syria’s Mediterranean coast. What the deal actually involves The pipeline connects Iraq’s Kirkuk oil region to the port of Baniyas on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. Before it went offline, the infrastructure handled roughly 700,000 barrels per day. The rehabilitated version is projected to carry significantly more. The US State Department has cited an initial transport capacity of 2 million barrels per day, nearly tripling the pipeline’s historical throughput. On the corporate side, Iraq’s Basra Oil Company and Syria’s Syrian Petroleum Company are the principal parties. They’re backed by a US-led international consortium that includes Chevron. The US State Department publicly welcomed the agreement. Before this deal materialized, Iraq had already been experimenting with alternative export methods. Truck-based crude shipments to Syria were targeting 5...