Between the rise of Hafez al-Assad in 1971 and the crisis engulfing his son’s government

today, the Syrian energy sector seems to have come full circle.

An oil importer in the 1950s and 60s with little production of its own, Syria became a net

exporter of oil by the 1980s; it is now a country whose depleting reserves will lead to

petroleum imports soon exceeding exports once again. With oil production approaching an

apparent dead end, the Syrian government – that is, whoever succeeds the lame duck regime

of Bashar al-Assad – will need to lean on oil transit fees for revenues, as the government of

the 50s and 60s did with the IPC pipeline from Iraq to Syria’s Mediterranean coast. In this

sense, once Assad goes he will leave his country’s energy sector in much the same situation

his father found it in when he rose to power in 1971....continue reading