French oil major TotalEnergies’
Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne will meet with Syrian
counterparts on Tuesday to discuss signing an exploration
contract, he told reporters in Damascus.
Pouyanne is in Syria as part of a delegation accompanying
French President Emmanuel Macron, whose visit was overshadowed
by bomb attacks in Damascus on Tuesday.
Total signed a memorandum of understanding in May with the
Syrian Petroleum Company to explore an offshore block in the
Mediterranean. It has also recently spoken about the need to
build pipelines through Syria to transport oil from Iraq as an
alternative to the Strait of Hormuz in the wake of the
US-Israeli war with Iran.
“Syria’s offshore area has never really been explored
historically, so we have partnered other companies to look into
it. We will discuss it today with our Syrian counterparts to see
whether we can move towards a contract,” Pouyanne said.
“Obviously we’d rather find oil than gas, but in the eastern
Mediterranean most discoveries so far — in Cyprus and Israel,
for example — have been gas,” he added.
The CEO reiterated that Syria had gained importance as a transit
route for Iraqi oil.