Syria oil .. Here is the full story

With the entry of the year 2025, Syria is witnessing the beginning of a new era after the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al -Assad, as the need became urgent to exploit all available resources to support the reconstruction efforts and construction of the economy.

In this context, oil represents one of the most important pillars of the Syrian economy and its most prominent future tributaries.

But with the abundance of information circulating about the petroleum capabilities of Syria in the media and social media, the urgent need to separate the facts appear from the expectations and analyzes that are often contradictory, as they swing between the narratives mired in pessimism and excessive optimism.

Based on this, this article seeks to provide an accurate and comprehensive image of the petroleum capabilities in Syria historically and to its current reality; Providing a realistic, realistic view supported by a technical and technical analysis based on my field and academic experiences for 15 years in the field of exploration and production within the Syrian oil sector, during my work with national or foreign companies.

-In 1925, the Turkish Petroleum Company (British) obtained the privilege of oil exploration in Iraq through the coalition of American, British and French companies to crown in the year 1926 the discovery of oil commercially in the installation of Baba Karkar north of the city of Kirkuk, where oil flowed from the Baba Karkar-1 well, with more than 95 thousand barrels of oil per day, which constituted a turning point in the oil industry in the region.

– out of these promising results, and the Iraqi Oil Company expanded its activities, in 1934 it obtained a privilege for excavation in Syria.

– The company started its exploratory operations in 1936 and continued until 1947, as it dug 11 exploratory wells in various major ponds without achieving positive results, which led to the termination of the concession in 1951.

– In 1955, the Syrian government granted the exploration of the American company Manhal, which started excavating in the “Karachuk” region (Qara Joach) in northeastern Syria.

-The work resulted in disappointing results in the first well (Karachuk-1), but the second well (Karkok-2) proved the presence of oil commercially for the first time in Syria. As a result of this discovery, the Syrian government turned the exploration of the German company “Concordia” in 1956, which in turn discovered in 1959 the Swedish field, the most important and largest oil fields in Syria.

– The “Swedish field”, known as “Syrian Oil fields”, is one of the globally giant carbonate fields, as it contains a geological reserve of more than 8 billion barrels of oil.

– “The Swedish field”, in which production began in 1968 at an average of 8.3 million barrels annually, witnessed a remarkable increase in production until it reached its peak in 1975 with the production of 50 million barrels annually, with 22 wells operating at the beginning. However, the production took the gradual decrease later to 23 million barrels annually by 2001, despite the increase in the number of wells operating to 685 wells, of which 114 horizontal wells and 571 wells vertically.

– A result of the sharp decline in the production of Syrian oil in the beginning of the eighties, the Syrian government resorted to signing contracts for exploration and sharing production with a number of major foreign companies such as “Total”, “El”, “Shell” and “Marathon”.

– The aforementioned companies implemented magnetic and zipper surveys, and dug more than 200 exploratory wells, which resulted in important commercial discoveries of oil and gas in several structures.

– The most important discoveries during that period were in the area of ​​Deir Al -Zour, where an alliance that includes the “Shell”, “El” and “Total” companies succeeded in discovering huge reserves of oil. In 1984, the “Tim field” was discovered, followed by “Al -Omar field” in 1987, which is one of the most important oil fields in Syria.

– In the Palmyra area in central Syria, the company “Marathon” was able to discover oil and gas in several important structures such as “Al -Ak”, “The Poet”, “Abu Rabah”, “Qamqam”, “Al -Sharifa”. These discoveries contributed to the peak of Syrian oil production, as production reached 560 thousand barrels per day in 1995, which is the highest level in the country’s history.

– But production began to gradually decline to 385 thousand barrels per day by 2002, which prompted the Syrian government to offer new areas of investment through global auctions.

– This has been issued laws to regulate the work of foreign companies under the framework of “service contract companies”, which helped prominent discoveries:

1- The British company “Galvan Sands”: It has a contract for exploration in northeastern Syria. In 2008, I discovered the “East Kharbat” field, then the “Yusifiyah” field in 2010, with a total reserve of 250 million barrels. The production of these fields reached 25 thousand barrels per day by 2012.

2- The Russian company “Tat Naft”: In 2010, oil was discovered in the “Al-Keshama” field in Albukamal city countryside, whose reserves were estimated at 40 million barrels.

3- The Croatian company “Eina”: In 2005, it achieved the most important discovery in the Palmyra region in central Syria, where it managed to trade discoveries in six fields, “Jahir”, “Al-Mahra”, Jazz, “Palmera”, “round”, and “Mazour”. The discovered gas reserves were estimated at 280 billion cubic meters, with a production capacity of 2.7 million cubic meters per day from the “poet” field east of Homs.

– In the year 2005, the US administration imposed a package of economic sanctions on Syria, so that the major foreign companies begin gradually withdrawing from Syria to sell their assets to Chinese or Indian companies to the year 2011, as it imposed direct international sanctions on the Syrian oil sector to announce most of the companies force majeure, stop their operations and leave Syria.

– With the beginning of 2012, most of the Syrian cities had revolted against the Assad regime, and the oil areas witnessed severe conflicts as a result of changing control of the land and the dispute of the various forces over the oil revenues.

In April 2012, the Syrian regime signed a contract with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party to take over “the protection and operation of oil installations” in northeastern Syria. However, the weak administrative and operational expertise, in addition to the security chaos, caused the majority of the producing wells, which led to the decline in production to the lowest level in its history, as it reached 1500 barrels per day in 2014.

– With the relatively stable conditions under the control of the Kurdish forces (self -administration), the production gradually increased to reach in the late 2020 to about 87 thousand barrels per day, in addition to producing half a million cubic meters of gas per day, it is supplied to the “Swedish” station to treat accompanying gas.

– In the area of ​​Deir Al -Zour, things were more complicated as a result of changing maps of the spheres of influence and the dominant forces changed several times, as the fields of “Al -Omar”, “Tim”, “Al -Tanak”, “Al -Ward” and “Al -Jafra”, and the “Konico” gas factory occurred under the control of the local opposition factions in 2012 and then the terrorist organization “ISIS” in 2014 and then the Kurdish units “SDF” in 2017. Most infrastructure in these fields.

– The Palmyra and the Homs countryside was the scene of walcous and running between the regime forces and “ISIS”, which in 2014 took control of the “Jabal Al -Shaer” fields, the most important gas fields in the region; The organization’s control of the “Arak” and “cardamom” fields extended in 2015, when most wells were subjected to sabotage and burning.

– These conflicts resulted in a widespread destruction of the oil and gas infrastructure in the country, which greatly affected energy production and contributed to deepening the economic crisis. Despite efforts to restore production in some areas, the oil and gas sector in Syria faces tremendous challenges to reconstruction and stability. (East News)