The agreement signed last week between the Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC), the U.S.'s ConocoPhillips and Great Britain's Novaterra ConocoPhillips — covering the development of new gas fields and the expansion of output at existing sites — is the latest move in Washington's and London's long‑game for shaping Syria's post‑Assad landscape. Rather than repeat the overt, Western‑fronted reconstruction model used in Iraq, both countries have opted for a subtler architecture: powerful Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., take the visible lead, while Western firms and planners operate behind them. This approach fits neatly into the broader U.S. effort to re‑establish Western influence across the Middle East and to revive the Arab–Israeli normalisation framework that defined Donald Trump's first term — a framework designed to limit the strategic space available to Russia and China. The question now is how far this strategy can run, and what Washington and London ultimately intend to build in Syria.
The U.S./G.B.-led early lifting of international sanctions against the previous Russia-backed al-Assad regime signalled the West's seriousness in rebuilding Syria's cornerstone oil and gas sectors as part of a broader revitalisation of its economy, by dint of which it can become "stable, unified and at peace with itself and its neighbors", as delineated in the sanctions removal order. Before the country's civil war started in March 2011 as part of the Arab Spring movement, it was a significant crude oil power, with production of around 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) from proved reserves of 2.5 billion barrels. In fact, before the recovery rate had begun to decline due to a lack of enhanced oil recovery techniques being employed at the major fields, it had been producing nearly 600,000 bpd. At that time, Europe was importing around US$3 billion of oil per year from Syria, with many of the continent's refineries configured to process the heavy, sour 'Souedie' crude oil that makes up much of Syria's output, and was exported -- together with its sweet and lighter 'Syrian Light' grade -- to Germany, Italy, and France, from one of its three Mediterranean export terminals: Banias, Tartus, and Latakia.
As great as its oil production and exports were, its gas sector was even bigger. Before the civil war erupted, Syria was producing around 21.9-30 million cubic metres of natural gas per day (mcm/d) and held proven reserves of 8.5 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). Production is estimated to have declined to just 7-7.6 mcm/d now. This output covers less than one-third of the estimated 18 mcm/d required to adequately supply the country's national electricity grid, leaving it to make up the deficit through natural gas imports from countries including Qatar and Azerbaijan. Russia moved quickly to tap Syria's energy revenues during its years of propping up Bashar al‑Assad, with Stroytransgaz beginning work on the South-Central Gas Area as early as 2009. By 2011, that development push had lifted Syria's natural gas production by around 40%, turning combined oil and gas exports into roughly a quarter of government income and briefly making Syria the leading hydrocarbon producer in the eastern Mediterranean. Moscow deepened this role in 2015 through the Cooperation Plan signed with Damascus, which set out the restoration of at least 40 energy installations — starting with gas facilities and later extending to offshore oil — alongside a major overhaul of the power sector. This included the full rebuild of the Aleppo thermal plant, installation of the Deir Ezzor plant, and capacity expansions at the Mharda and Tishreen stations. The aim was straightforward: to reenergise the national grid and reinforce Damascus's central authority. From a Western perspective, this means that a significant portion of the groundwork for Syria's energy recovery has already been laid — albeit by Russia.
Having said all this, although Syria's energy sector is one of its appeals to the U.S. and its allies — particularly in light of diminishing oil and gas supplies from Russia, due to sanctions over its war in Ukraine — it has a much greater geopolitical significance to the West, and to the East. Since Moscow began full-scale military operations on 30 September 2015, following an official request from al-Assad's Damascus for military assistance against opposition forces and Islamic State militants, Syria was the linchpin of Russia's entire Middle East and North Africa strategy and, by extension, one of China's key strategic hubs too. For Moscow, Syria provided a warm‑water military presence on the Mediterranean, outside NATO's containment arc, and within striking distance of Europe's southern flank. Russia's foothold in Syria gave Moscow something it had lacked since the Soviet collapse: permanent military reach into the Levant, the eastern Mediterranean, and deep into North Africa. The naval facility at Tartus and the airbase at Hmeimim formed the backbone of this presence, allowing Russian forces to operate across the region with a continuity they had not enjoyed for decades. Syria also offered Moscow a forward platform for intelligence gathering through its installation near Latakia, as well as a venue for arms sales and diplomatic leverage — all reinforced by Russia's extensive involvement in the country's energy sector. Together, these assets turned Syria into a multi‑purpose strategic hub for the Kremlin. The country was also central to Russia's and Iran's plans for a 'Land Bridge' -- a corridor running from Tehran to Syria's Mediterranean coastline, designed to massively expand weapons flows into southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights for use against Israel. China was also involved in this corridor, as the supporting infrastructure for this route was being laid through the US$17 billion Iraq–China Strategic Development Road, intended to run from Basra to southern Turkey and plug directly into China's Belt and Road Initiative.
The expanded presence of the U.S. and its allies in Syria not only denies Russia and Moscow access to this key geopolitical point and to its oil and gas resources, and allows Washington and its friends to enjoy them instead, but it also provides a focus for Western-Arab efforts to define how the Middle East will look going forward. In the ongoing endgame of the conflict with Iran, this will be even more important, given the presence on the ground in Syria of Saudi Arabian and U.A.E. firms alongside those from the U.S. and Great Britain. Early November last year saw the U.A.E.'s powerhouse enterprise Dana Gas sign a preliminary deal with Syria's state oil company to look at redeveloping the country's natural gas fields. The same firm has also been instrumental in major gas redevelopment projects in two other key countries in the region — Egypt and Iraq. In Iraq, it has been operating successfully in the flashpoint semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq's north, announcing the beginning of gas sales from the region's Khor Mor gas expansion project last October. And over the past few months, Saudi Arabia has signed a slew of major deals with Syria, driven directly by Riyadh's Ministry of Energy. It is overseeing four of its key companies — TAQA, ADES Holding, Arabian Drilling, and the Arabian Geophysical and Surveying Company — as they move into Syria to provide services, technical support, and field development across both oil and gas. Together, these Gulf-led initiatives will operate alongside Western efforts, after the July announcement that U.S. firms Baker Hughes, Hunt Energy, and Argent LNG are working on a broader plan to rebuild Syria's oil, gas, and power sectors. That plan initially centres on areas west of the Euphrates, with expansion eastward expected as soon as conditions allow.
Taken together, the ConocoPhillips–Novaterra–SPC agreement and the broader surge of Western‑ and Gulf‑backed energy projects represent far more than an industrial reboot — they amount to a deliberate redrawing of Syria's strategic orientation at a moment of regional upheaval. By placing U.S. and G.B. companies at the core of Syria's post‑al-Assad reconstruction, Washington and London secure a decisive lever over the political and economic architecture that will emerge from the current conflict centred on Iran. In parallel, the deepening involvement of heavyweight Arab partners such as Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. pulls Damascus into a regional framework that — until the Iran war upended the balance — had been steadily consolidating around U.S.-aligned states. If that framework can be stabilised again, these partnerships still offer a viable pathway toward the next phase of the normalisation agenda, long viewed by President Donald Trump as the key to reshaping the Middle East's strategic map.
