Syria, Iraq and US plan to unveil pipeline deal to bypass Strait of Hormuz
Iraq, Syria and the US plan to revive a historic 500-mile pipeline to Syria's Mediterranean coast as part of efforts to reduce Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, senior Iraqi and regional officials have told Middle East Eye.
An agreement to revive the pipeline, originally running from the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk to Syria’s coastal town of Baniyas, is expected to be unveiled next week when Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi meets US President Donald Trump at the White House, the sources told MEE.
Tom Barrack, Trump’s ambassador to Turkey and envoy to Syria and Iraq, has been working on the details of the agreement before Zaidi’s visit, which is also expected to include a stop in Texas, the US's energy hub state.
The senior Iraqi official told MEE that Barrack has developed a good working relationship with Zaidi and wants to use the pipeline as a model for business projects in the Levant that he has trumpeted as benefiting the US and local governments.
The pipeline was completed in 1952 by Iraq’s Petroleum Company with around 300,000 barrels per day (BPD) of capacity. Baghdad shut the pipeline in the 1980s after Syria sided with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. The line was heavily damaged after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and is effectively defunct.
: Syria, Iraq and US plan to unveil pipeline deal to bypass Strait of Hormuz
Oil facilities at the Baniyas port refinery on the Mediterranean Sea, Syria, on 15 April 2026 (Bakr Alkasem/AFP)