Iraq opens Syrian land route for gasoline after Hormuz disruption

Summary

• First cargo of 32,800 tons of gasoline moved from Syria's Baniyas refinery to Iraq by truck
• Iraq turned to the Syrian corridor after the Iran war closed the Strait of Hormuz
• Baghdad says it will keep developing Syrian routes even if Hormuz traffic normalises

The latest

Trucks carrying gasoline began rolling from Syria's Baniyas refinery toward the Iraqi border this week, opening a return leg on a corridor that until now had run only from Iraq to the Syrian coast. Tareq Shallash, director of the Refining Directorate at the state-owned Syrian Petroleum Company, said 77 tanker trucks have already departed and loading was continuing, with further shipments expected.

Details

• The cargo: The first consignment bound for Iraq was about 32,800 metric tons of gasoline carried aboard the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Avanti, according to Shallash. It was discharged into storage tanks at the Baniyas refinery before being transferred onto road tankers for the overland run to the Iraqi border.
• The contract: The operation runs under a transit contract between the Syrian Petroleum Company and Qatar's UCC Holding, Shallash said, describing the Qatari firm as both the supplier of the fuel and the party overseeing transportation. He said the agreement is currently limited to gasoline.
• Baghdad confirms: Iraqi oil ministry spokesperson Saleem al-Rikabi told Reuters that a contract was signed between SOMO, Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation, and the Qatari company to supply improved gasoline through Baniyas by road tankers, adding that "the supplies have in fact been delivered on a regular basis."
• Not Syrian supply: Shallash said the gasoline was neither produced in Syria nor drawn from stocks earmarked for the domestic market, framing the country's role as purely transit: discharge, storage and onward trucking rather than selling its own product into Iraq.
• Why the route exists: Iraq began using the Syrian corridor after the Iran war cut off the Strait of Hormuz, its main Gulf trade artery. Baghdad has said it intends to keep developing alternative routes through Syria even if shipping through Hormuz returns to normal, treating the link as a standing option rather than a stopgap.
• The shipping trail: A second Marshall Islands-flagged tanker, Gaita, loaded gasoline at the Port of Houston before sailing to Baniyas to discharge, according to LSEG shipping data — placing US-loaded barrels at the start of a chain that ends in Iraqi trucks.
• The reverse flow: Until this shipment, fuel oil had moved only in the opposite direction, from Iraq to Syrian ports. Reuters reported in July that Iraqi fuel oil trucked to Baniyas and shipped onward had reached the United States for the first time, establishing the corridor before the return leg opened.
• Room to expand: Shallash said the route could later widen beyond gasoline to other petroleum products, crude oil or non-oil goods under future agreements. No timetable or volume target was announced, and the parties did not disclose the value of the transit contract.

Background

Baniyas hosts one of Syria's two main refineries and sits on the Mediterranean, giving Iraqi trade a western outlet that bypasses the Gulf entirely. The Iraq–Syria overland corridor was revived only after Hormuz traffic was disrupted.

Between the lines

Two signals suggest this is structural rather than emergency improvisation. Baghdad's stated plan to keep building Syrian routes even after Hormuz normalises implies the corridor is being treated as permanent redundancy. And a Qatari supplier moving US-loaded cargo through Syrian infrastructure into Iraq points to a commercial chain assembled to outlast the disruption that created it.

What's next

Watch whether further cargoes arrive at Baniyas on the pattern set by Avanti and Gaita, whether SOMO and UCC Holding extend the transit contract beyond gasoline, and whether Hormuz traffic normalises without slowing the Syrian route.

Source: Reuters (via Zawya), LSEG