Syria expects to award oil and gas exploration licenses to major international oil firms as it looks to tap its estimated huge reserves, the chief executive of the state-owned Syrian Petroleum Company told the Financial Times in remarks published on Wednesday.
“There is a lot of land in the country that has not been touched yet. There are trillions of cubic metres of gas,” Youssef Qablawi, CEO of Syrian Petroleum Company, told the FT.
Syria is tapping U.S. firms Chevron and ConocoPhillips and European majors TotalEnergies and Eni to help it drill for oil and gas and revive the country’s hydrocarbon industry following more than a decade of civil war, Qablawi said.
Last week, Chevron signed a memorandum of understanding with Qatari firm UCC Holding and the Syrian Petroleum Company to explore for oil and gas offshore Syria, a region lying between major gas discoveries in Israel and Egypt.
Chevron is expected to begin work on the offshore block “within two months,” Qablawi told FT.
TotalEnergies and QatarEnergy are considering investing in a second exploration license, the executive added. U.S. firm ConocoPhillips could also express interest, while the Syrian company is also looking to tap Italian major Eni, according to Qablawi.
The executive is set to meet with BP executives in London this week to discuss a potential involvement of the UK supermajor.
Syria would be open to Russian and Chinese collaboration, too, Qablawi told FT.
In November, the Syrian Petroleum Company signed a memorandum of understanding with ConocoPhillips and Novaterra Energy to develop several gas fields and launch exploration programs for new fields.
As the Syrian government recently regained control over key oil and gas fields in the Deir ez-Zor and Al-Raqqah provinces, domestic production is set to rebound this year, Wood Mackenzie said last month.
The energy consultancy estimates that Syria holds remaining discovered oil and gas resources of at least 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), with large areas of the country still underexplored. Syria’s offshore sector remains entirely untapped, with no exploration wells drilled to date.
WoodMac expects gas-focused operators to re-enter first in Syria, due to the comparatively safer operating environment in the Palmyride Basin and the strategic priority of power generation.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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