Pipeline revival deal expected next week

Iraq, the United States and Syria are preparing to revive the roughly 500-mile Kirkuk–Baniyas oil pipeline as part of a strategic effort to reduce Iran's leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, senior Iraqi and regional officials told Middle East Eye. An agreement on the project is expected to be unveiled next week during Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s visit to the White House to meet President Donald Trump; the trip is also expected to include a stop in Texas. Tom Barrack, described by officials as Trump’s envoy to Syria and Iraq and ambassador to Turkey, has been working on the details and is promoting the pipeline as a model for wider Levant business projects.

The line was completed in 1952 by Iraq’s Petroleum Company with about 300,000 barrels per day capacity but was shut in the 1980s after Syria sided with Iran during the Iran‑Iraq war and was heavily damaged after the 2003 US invasion, leaving it effectively defunct. Officials say reviving the Kirkuk–Baniyas route would reroute Iraqi crude to Syria’s Mediterranean coast and could alter regional energy and security dynamics, if the plan proceeds, as reported by Middle East Eye