Iraq's oil ministry expects to complete negotiations over a pipeline running to Syria by the end of the year, according to a ministry statement reported by The New Region on June 24, 2025.

The talks, still at the negotiating stage, centre on restoring a crude transit route that would give Baghdad an additional export outlet through Syrian territory to the Mediterranean coast. The ministry did not disclose the line's design capacity, the counterpart parties in Damascus, or the commercial terms under discussion.

What is at stake for Baghdad?

A functioning Iraq-Syria pipeline would diversify Iraq's export infrastructure, which remains heavily concentrated in the south. The bulk of the country's roughly 4 million bpd of crude exports flows through the Persian Gulf terminals at Basrah, with a smaller volume moving north via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline through Türkiye. A western corridor through Syria would add a third egress route.

The ministry's public commitment to a year-end deadline signals Baghdad wants the negotiation wrapped within 2025 rather than drifting into an open-ended diplomatic track. No final investment decision, engineering scope, or financing structure accompanied the announcement, and the project remains at the negotiation stage rather than sanctioned execution.

What did the ministry actually say?

The ministry framed the timeline narrowly: negotiations to be completed by year-end. It offered no capacity figure, no throughput commitment, and no indication of which Iraqi fields would feed the line. The New Region carried the statement without independent confirmation from Syrian authorities.

Analysts will want to see whether a signed framework follows the deadline, and whether security along the route — a long-standing obstacle for cross-border infrastructure in the region — is addressed in any agreement.

The watch item

Watch for a signed negotiating framework or heads of agreement before December 31, 2025. Absent that, the year-end target becomes the first credibility test for the proposal. The counterparty response from Damascus, and any capacity figures attached to a draft accord, will mark the difference between a sanctioned project and another corridor concept.