📊 Syria to serve as Iraq’s oil route to bypass Hormuz – but volumes remain a drop in the bucket

The Iraqi government has asked Syria to help with crude oil exports, Yousef Qiblawy, chief executive officer of the state-owned Syrian Petroleum Co., told Bloomberg.

Iraq already sends some of its fuel oil to Syria’s Mediterranean port of Baniyas by truck, with around 1,000 vehicles making the journey each day, each carrying roughly 220 barrels, Qiblawy said.

He noted that the same or even a larger number of trucks loaded with crude could pass through Syria.

The export of Iraqi crude to Syria by truck could begin as early as mid-October, according to Qiblawy.

Iraq also transits some crude and fuel oil through Jordan to avoid the dangerous Strait of Hormuz. Reuters reported last week that Iraq’s state-owned Oil Tanker Company had also managed to transport 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude aboard a very large crude carrier (VLCC) through the strait.

Based on the figures cited by Qiblawy, trucks passing through Syria would carry 220,000 barrels of oil per day, or between 6.6 million and 6.82 million barrels per month. That's a far cry from the 93 million barrels per month that Iraq routinely exported through the Strait of Hormuz before the Iran war, according to numbers cited by Iraqi Oil Minister Basim Mohammed in May.

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