Iraq-Syria Pipeline To 'Bypass' Hormuz Likely To Take Four Years, $15BN To Build
by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Aug 19, 2026 - 04:25 AM
Via The Cradle
Iraq's plan to build a pipeline to export oil through Syria and partially bypass the Strait of Hormuz will likely take four years to complete and cost $15 billion, Reuters reported on Monday.
Iraq urgently seeks new outlets for its oil exports, which have plummeted since Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to the US-Israel war on the Islamic Republic that started in February.
In July, Baghdad exported only 35.5 million barrels through its Basra ports via the Strait of Hormuz, according to the state-run oil firm SOMO. Before the war, Iraq exported about 108 million barrels of oil per month.
The fall in exports has created a budget crisis, as Iraq relies on oil revenues to fund 90 percent of its spending.
Iraq and Syria signed a memorandum of understanding in Washington in July to revive a historic pipeline linking the Kirkuk fields to the Syrian port city of Banias on the Mediterranean Sea.
A separate agreement was signed with a consortium including Chevron, UCC Holding, and TI Capital to undertake technical and financial studies for the pipeline's reconstruction.
The pipeline is expected to transport 2 million barrels per day to the Syrian port, where the crude can then be shipped to Europe by tanker.
But a planned pipeline to export via Syria may not provide an alternative to Hormuz as soon as Iraqi officials had hoped.
"Both sources said the plan would require laying entirely new infrastructure rather than rehabilitating the existing pipeline and cost at least $15 billion," Reuters reported.
Rebuilding the pipeline could take as long as four years because it has been unused since the 1980s and is extensively damaged.
Even the intact sections of that pipeline would have to be replaced as they are not compatible with newly developed specifications, one of the sources said.
An entirely new integrated crude oil pipeline system linking Iraq's southern and northern fields to a central hub in Haditha, in western Iraq, would also have to be built, the second source stated.
The four-year timeline is also well beyond the two-year period estimated by US Treasury Scott Bessent for Hormuz to become "irrelevant" due to the construction of new underground pipelines by the Gulf states.
The fall in exports has created a budget crisis, as Iraq relies on oil revenues to fund 90 percent of its spending.
Iraq and Syria signed a memorandum of understanding in Washington in July to revive a historic pipeline linking the Kirkuk fields to the Syrian port city of Banias on the Mediterranean Sea.
A separate agreement was signed with a consortium including Chevron, UCC Holding, and TI Capital to undertake technical and financial studies for the pipeline's reconstruction.
The pipeline is expected to transport 2 million barrels per day to the Syrian port, where the crude can then be shipped to Europe by tanker.
But a planned pipeline to export via Syria may not provide an alternative to Hormuz as soon as Iraqi officials had hoped.
"Both sources said the plan would require laying entirely new infrastructure rather than rehabilitating the existing pipeline and cost at least $15 billion," Reuters reported.
Rebuilding the pipeline could take as long as four years because it has been unused since the 1980s and is extensively damaged.
Even the intact sections of that pipeline would have to be replaced as they are not compatible with newly developed specifications, one of the sources said.
An entirely new integrated crude oil pipeline system linking Iraq's southern and northern fields to a central hub in Haditha, in western Iraq, would also have to be built, the second source stated.
The four-year timeline is also well beyond the two-year period estimated by US Treasury Scott Bessent for Hormuz to become "irrelevant" due to the construction of new underground pipelines by the Gulf states.
Eastern Bully Very Crever.
ReplyDeleteAnd This is Why 47 Lusts Greenland.
🇨🇳 China just launched a shipping route that skips the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz entirely.
A Chinese container line, started its regular "Ice Silk Road" service through Russia's Northern Sea Route this week, running almost the whole way along the Arctic coastline.
The first vessel, Dubai Tower, carries 1,740 TEU, tiny next to a modern mainline containership running 20,000-plus TEU.
The crossing takes about 20 days, versus roughly 40 days via Suez, half the transit time on paper.
Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear company, issues the Arctic navigation permits and supplies the nuclear-powered icebreakers that keep the route open in ice season.
Rosatom is already calling this the next step toward regular seasonal Arctic shipping, not a one off...
Strategically this matters more than the ship size suggests.
It's a Europe-Asia corridor that sidesteps Suez, Hormuz, and the Red Sea, all the chokepoints this account has covered all week, and gives China a shipping lane that doesn't run through anyone else's waterway.
One small ship doesn't reroute global trade but pair this with everything else running this week, the Yanbu to Sidi Kerir reroutes, Oman's Duqm bypass hub, and now a functioning Arctic corridor, and the pattern is the same everywhere...everyone's building a way around the chokepoints that used to be unavoidable.
https://x.com/jackprandelli/status/2089664458125717648?s=20