[From Foreign Influence to National Resilience: Redefining Syria’s Energy Strategy]
For most countries, electricity is an economic input. For Syria, it is something more fundamental: a test of whether the state can once again provide basic services, reconnect its regions, and translate political transition into material improvement. Factories cannot reopen, hospitals cannot function reliably, and displaced families cannot be expected to return where power remains intermittent. Syria’s first peace dividend, therefore, must be electricity.
Yet the central question is not simply how many megawatts Syria can add. It is whether Damascus can transform foreign fuel, finance, and technology into durable national capacity. If it succeeds, energy diplomacy could become an instrument of reconstruction and sovereignty. If it fails, Syria may merely exchange one form of external dependence for another.
A new map of energy dependence
Syria’s emerging energy system is already regional. Qatar began financing gas deliveries through Jordan to the Deir Ali power station, with two million cubic metres per day intended to generate around 400 megawatts. Gas from Azerbaijan has also flowed through Türkiye’s Kilis connection, with financial support from Qatar. The initial plan envisaged supplies of up to six million cubic metres per day, potentially supporting about 1,200 megawatts of generation.
These arrangements demonstrate energy diplomacy in practice. Qatar provides financial support, Jordan and Türkiye offer transit routes, Azerbaijan supplies gas, and Syria receives the energy needed to restart economic life. What appears to be a fuel transaction is, in reality, a new network of political relationships.
Doha and Ankara are not acting solely out of humanitarian or commercial considerations. Energy assistance gives both governments an opportunity to consolidate their influence in post-war Syria and help shape the emerging political and economic order in the Levant. Damascus must benefit from this competition without allowing reconstruction to become a division of strategic assets among external patrons.
The scale of foreign ambition is even larger. In May 2025, Syria signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a consortium led by Qatar’s UCC Holding for an estimated $7 billion investment programme. The proposal includes four combined-cycle gas plants with a total capacity of 4,000 megawatts and a 1,000-megawatt solar project.
[READ: SPAYS FOREIGN POLICY FOCUSED ON RESTORING TIES WITH EUROPE AS DENMARK REOPENS EMBASSY]
Meanwhile, the upstream sector is reopening. In June 2026, the Syrian Petroleum Company signed an agreement with ConocoPhillips and Novaterra to develop gas fields and increase production. Syrian gas output had fallen from 8.7 billion cubic metres in 2011 to approximately three billion in 2023. Reviving domestic production matters not only for revenue, but also because gas remains essential to reliable electricity generation.
Megawatts are not sovereignty
These projects create an opportunity, but announcements should not be confused with a functional energy system. New power plants will achieve little if transmission lines remain damaged, substations fail, cables are looted and households cannot afford electricity. Syria’s crisis extends across the entire chain—from fuel supply and grid management to maintenance, billing and public access.
The legal environment has also changed significantly. Washington dismantled its broad Syria sanctions programme in 2025, while the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act was repealed in December that year. These measures removed major barriers to foreign investment, but they did not eliminate every legal and financial risk. Targeted sanctions remain, while international banks and investors still face strict compliance requirements.
Financial institutions may still exhibit caution regardless of legal permits, particularly where ownership structures, regulatory responsibilities, or beneficiaries are unclear. Syria therefore requires credible investment laws, transparent ownership records and enforceable contractual safeguards if political openings are to become long-term financial commitments.
Foreign investment is not politically neutral. The supplier of gas, the operator of a power plant, the financier of a transmission line and the company controlling technical maintenance can all acquire influence over national choices. Poorly designed agreements may lock in dependence precisely when they are presented as instruments of recovery.
Syria cannot rebuild alone. It must instead practise diversification by design: multiple suppliers, several transit routes, competitive investors and a balanced mix of gas, solar and other domestic resources. Dependence distributed across partners can be managed; dependence concentrated in one capital, company or corridor becomes leverage.
Energy must reunify, not redivide
The most difficult question lies inside Syria. Important oil and gas resources are located in the north-east. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces formally dissolved in August 2026 as their military and administrative structures were integrated into the Syrian state. This ended one phase of territorial fragmentation, but it did not resolve deeper questions about institutional integration, local rights and resource governance.
[READ: SYRIAN SOVEREIGN FUND, UAE developer sign $7B deal for major Damascus project: Report]
Part of the revenue should support local development, while the wider system finances reconstruction across Syria. Transparent accounts, published contractual principles and an auditable formula for distributing energy revenues would strengthen national cohesion more effectively than another opaque agreement signed in Damascus.
Access also matters. A policy that adds thousands of megawatts but leaves poorer districts dependent on expensive private generators cannot be considered successful. Progress should be measured not only by installed capacity, but also by hours of supply, household affordability, geographical coverage, industrial reconnection and the restoration of water and health services. Energy justice is not an optional social policy; in post-war Syria, it is part of political stability.
A Syrian doctrine of energy diplomacy
Syria now needs an energy diplomacy doctrine built around five commitments: diversifying partners and routes; preventing foreign monopolies over strategic infrastructure; requiring technology transfer and Syrian workforce training; publishing clear rules for contracts and resource revenues; and linking every major project to measurable improvements in public access.
Renewables should be treated as a source of resilience rather than international branding. While utility-scale solar projects can expand total capacity, decentralised off-grid systems for clinics, water-pumping stations and schools can provide immediate, ground-level resilience while the national grid is rebuilt. Gas can stabilise the system today; renewables can prevent the reconstruction of yesterday’s fragile model.
Syria needs foreign power to illuminate its cities. But only national institutions can ensure that imported fuel, Gulf finance, Turkish transit, Western technology and domestic resources strengthen Syrian society rather than create competing spheres of influence.
The success of Syria’s energy diplomacy will not be measured by the number of agreements it signs. It will be measured by how much power—in both senses of the word—those agreements return to its people and its state.
OPINION: Jordan’s energy diplomacy: The power of being in between
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
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” fit this description.)[From Foreign Influence to National Resilience: Redefining Syria’s Energy Strategy]
For most countries, electricity is an economic input. For Syria, it is something more fundamental: a test of whether the state can once again provide basic services, reconnect its regions, and translate political transition into material improvement. Factories cannot reopen, hospitals cannot function reliably, and displaced families cannot be expected to return where power remains intermittent. Syria’s first peace dividend, therefore, must be electricity.
Yet the central question is not simply how many megawatts Syria can add. It is whether Damascus can transform foreign fuel, finance, and technology into durable national capacity. If it succeeds, energy diplomacy could become an instrument of reconstruction and sovereignty. If it fails, Syria may merely exchange one form of external dependence for another.
A new map of energy dependence
Syria’s emerging energy system is already regional. Qatar began financing gas deliveries through Jordan to the Deir Ali power station, with two million cubic metres per day intended to generate around 400 megawatts. Gas from Azerbaijan has also flowed through Türkiye’s Kilis connection, with financial support from Qatar. The initial plan envisaged supplies of up to six million cubic metres per day, potentially supporting about 1,200 megawatts of generation.
These arrangements demonstrate energy diplomacy in practice. Qatar provides financial support, Jordan and Türkiye offer transit routes, Azerbaijan supplies gas, and Syria receives the energy needed to restart economic life. What appears to be a fuel transaction is, in reality, a new network of political relationships.
Doha and Ankara are not acting solely out of humanitarian or commercial considerations. Energy assistance gives both governments an opportunity to consolidate their influence in post-war Syria and help shape the emerging political and economic order in the Levant. Damascus must benefit from this competition without allowing reconstruction to become a division of strategic assets among external patrons.
The scale of foreign ambition is even larger. In May 2025, Syria signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a consortium led by Qatar’s UCC Holding for an estimated $7 billion investment programme. The proposal includes four combined-cycle gas plants with a total capacity of 4,000 megawatts and a 1,000-megawatt solar project.
[READ: SPAYS FOREIGN POLICY FOCUSED ON RESTORING TIES WITH EUROPE AS DENMARK REOPENS EMBASSY]
Meanwhile, the upstream sector is reopening. In June 2026, the Syrian Petroleum Company signed an agreement with ConocoPhillips and Novatera to develop gas fields and increase production. Syrian gas output had fallen from 8.7 billion cubic metres in 2011 to approximately three billion in 2023. Reviving domestic production matters not only for revenue, but also because gas remains essential to reliable electricity generation.
Megawatts are not sovereignty
These projects create an opportunity, but announcements should not be confused with a functional energy system. New power plants will achieve little if transmission lines remain damaged, substations fail, cables are looted and households cannot afford electricity. Syria’s crisis extends across the entire chain—from fuel supply and grid management to maintenance, billing and public access.
The legal environment has also changed significantly. Washington dismantled its broad Syria sanctions programme in 2025, while the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act was repealed in December that year. These measures removed major barriers to foreign investment, but they did not eliminate every legal and financial risk. Targeted sanctions remain, while international banks and investors still face strict compliance requirements.
Financial institutions may still exhibit caution regardless of legal permits, particularly where ownership structures, regulatory responsibilities, or beneficiaries are unclear. Syria therefore requires credible investment laws, transparent ownership records and enforceable contractual safeguards if political openings are to become long-term financial commitments.
Foreign investment is not politically neutral. The supplier of gas, the operator of a power plant, the financier of a transmission line and the company controlling technical maintenance can all acquire influence over national choices. Poorly designed agreements may lock in dependence precisely when they are presented as instruments of recovery.
Syria cannot rebuild alone. It must instead practise diversification by design: multiple suppliers, several transit routes, competitive investors and a balanced mix of gas, solar and other domestic resources. Dependence distributed across partners can be managed; dependence concentrated in one capital, company or corridor becomes leverage.
Energy must reunify, not redivide
The most difficult question lies inside Syria. Important oil and gas resources are located in the north-east. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces formally dissolved in August 2026 as their military and administrative structures were integrated into the Syrian state. This ended one phase of territorial fragmentation, but it did not resolve deeper questions about institutional integration, local rights and resource governance.
[READ: SYRIAN SOVEREIGN FUND, UAE developer sign $7B deal for major Damascus project: Report]
Part of the revenue should support local development, while the wider system finances reconstruction across Syria. Transparent accounts, published contractual principles and an auditable formula for distributing energy revenues would strengthen national cohesion more effectively than another opaque agreement signed in Damascus.
Access also matters. A policy that adds thousands of megawatts but leaves poorer districts dependent on expensive private generators cannot be considered successful. Progress should be measured not only by installed capacity, but also by hours of supply, household affordability, geographical coverage, industrial reconnection and the restoration of water and health services. Energy justice is not an optional social policy; in post-war Syria, it is part of political stability.
A Syrian doctrine of energy diplomacy
Syria now needs an energy diplomacy doctrine built around five commitments: diversifying partners and routes; preventing foreign monopolies over strategic infrastructure; requiring technology transfer and Syrian workforce training; publishing clear rules for contracts and resource revenues; and linking every major project to measurable improvements in public access.
Renewables should be treated as a source of resilience rather than international branding. While utility-scale solar projects can expand total capacity, decentralised off-grid systems for clinics, water-pumping stations and schools can provide immediate, ground-level resilience while the national grid is rebuilt. Gas can stabilise the system today; renewables can prevent the reconstruction of yesterday’s fragile model.
Syria needs foreign power to illuminate its cities. But only national institutions can ensure that imported fuel, Gulf finance, Turkish transit, Western technology and domestic resources strengthen Syrian society rather than create competing spheres of influence.
The success of Syria’s energy diplomacy will not be measured by the number of agreements it signs. It will be measured by how much power—in both senses of the word—those agreements return to its people and its state.
[OPINION: Jordan’s energy diplomacy: The power of being in between]
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
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