A critical part of the political, economic, religious, and security fabric of the Middle East, it is also a crucial link from there to Africa in the south and to Europe in the West, by dint of its long Mediterranean coastline, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. The deal also covered the full reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Aleppo thermal plant, the installation of the Deir Ezzor power plant and the expansion of capacity of the Mharda and Tishreen plants, with a view to re-energising Syria’s power grid and restoring the main control centre for the grid back to Damascus. Europe imported over US$3 billion of oil per year from Syria up to the beginning of 2011, and many European refineries were configured to process the heavy, sour ‘Souedie’ crude oil that makes up much of Syria’s output, with the remainder being the sweet and lighter ‘Syrian Light’ grade.
Author: Simon Watkins
Published at: 2025-11-19 00:00:00
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