The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said the oil gift would be made at the behest of King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who is the de facto chief executive of Saudi Arabia.
The oil grant will be handled by the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), a Saudi government agency that provides assistance to developing nations for infrastructure projects. The CEO of the SFD, Sultan al-Marshad, signed a memorandum of understanding for the grant with Syrian energy minister Mohammad al-Bashir on Thursday.
“The grant aims to enhance the operations of Syrian refineries and achieve both operational and financial sustainability. Its goals include supporting economic development, addressing economic challenges, fostering the growth of vital sectors, and contributing to the achievement of sustainable development goals,” the SPA reported.
The government in Damascus is a military junta, led by a former al-Qaeda franchise called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS and its allies managed to unseat longtime dictator Bashar Assad with a swift assault on Damascus in December 2024, toppling the 50-year Assad dynasty and concluding the brutal 14-year Syrian civil war.
The Saudis join Western leaders, including President Donald Trump, in placing some heavy bets on the ostensibly reformed HTS and its leader, interim Syrian president and former al-Qaeda lieutenant Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Trump spoke highly of Sharaa after a surprise meeting with him in May and soon ordered U.S. sanctions against Syria under the Assad regime to be lifted. Sharaa has offered reassurances that he plans to bring a more inclusive government to Syria, and he is desperate for assistance to rebuild the war-torn country.
Energy is a major crisis in Syria at the moment. The civil war was utterly devastating to the energy infrastructure of a nation that once exported a significant amount of oil. Syria’s power grid lost about 80 percent of its capacity to generate electricity during the war, and it will cost at least $40 billion to repair it.
The energy minister who signed the oil grant deal with Saudi Arabia, Mohammad al-Bashir, presides over a new super-agency that was created in March by merging the old electricity, oil, mineral, and water ministries together. Bashir, who holds a degree in electrical engineering, is also serving as the caretaker prime minister of Syria. He has made several trips to Saudi Arabia to secure Saudi assistance with restarting Syria’s energy sector.
Syria resumed oil exports for the first time in 14 years at the beginning of September, shipping 600,000 barrels of heavy oil from the port of Tartus. The Baniyas refinery near Tartus is the largest in Syria and would play a key role in any plans to revive profitable exports of refined oil.
Syria currently consumes about 138,000 barrels of crude oil per day, so Saudi Arabia’s grant is only enough to cover Syria’s total usage for about 12 days. The grant is more significant as a pump-priming shipment of crude oil to get Syrian refineries back up to speed.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar jointly retired Syria’s debt of $15.5 million to the World Bank in March, clearing the way for a $146 million World Bank grant to rebuild Syria’s power grid. The Saudis have thus far promised to invest over $6.4 billion in Syrian reconstruction.
Earlier this week, the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center of Saudi Arabia announced a joint project to clear rubble from the streets of Damascus, repair damaged structures, fix the sewage and water systems in the capital city, and rebuild 34 schools in the cities of Aleppo, Idlib, and Homs.
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