The critical role of energy systems in accelerating economic recovery

The Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria has ended. The next phase will no doubt be complex and chaotic, but the collapse of long-standing governments elsewhere teaches some important lessons. And among those is the importance of securing and rebuilding the energy system.

Syria was never a major energy power. But it was a moderately significant oil and gas producer. Oil was concentrated in the Kurdish-dominated north-east, and the eastern area around Deir Al Zor near the Iraqi border. Gas was more spread around, including the Palmyra area in central Syria.

Maturing oil fields

More than exports, hydrocarbons were important for government revenues, and for domestic energy supply. Because of maturing fields, oil production had peaked in 2002 and gone into decline, weakening the state’s fiscal base.

The conflict accelerated this collapse. Oil production, which stood at almost 400,000 barrels per day just before the war, had dwindled to about 40,000 bpd last year. Some local production continued, refined in primitive and polluting facilities dotted around the countryside. The areas under control of the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces fared better, with oil being moved into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq for sale or refining, or sold to the Assad regime through middlemen in complex deals.

Gas production held up a bit better. But gas output dropped from a pre-war 8.4 billion cubic metres per year to 3 billion cubic metres in 2023. Syria could also have been an important transit state, with gas flowing from Egypt to Lebanon, but again this was interrupted by the war, worsening Lebanon’s energy crisis. Several attempts were made with the Assad regime in recent years to negotiate transit of Egyptian gas or Jordanian electricity, but without success.

The electricity system was wracked by war damage, neglect and lack of fuel. More than half of the grid has been put out of action, and supply has been cut to just 2-4 hours per day. People were forced to turn to expensive and unreliable generators.

Limited solar power

A limited amount of solar power has been installed, which the International Renewable Energy Agency estimates at 60 megawatts. It’s likely that the true amount is significantly more, reflecting small-scale domestic systems.

Conflict-hit states in the neighbourhood offer important lessons. These include Lebanon, Yemen, Libya and Iraq. All suffer from poor electricity grids – in Iraq’s case, even two decades since the US invasion. This inhibits economic recovery and fosters constant popular discontent, particularly in hot summers. The electricity system receives huge subsidies, undermining the government budget, yet fails to deliver.

All have turned to local diesel generators, again as in Syria. These ease the immediate problem, but are costly and polluting. Local control of oil and gas resources becomes enormously important politically. This applies in different ways in Libya, Yemen and Iraq, where autonomous administrations or rival governments use their control of petroleum infrastructure to pay bills, provide jobs, and exercise political leverage over rivals.

A similar pattern has persisted in Syria throughout the war. Restoring some semblance of central authority requires reconciling these claims.  Otherwise, as in Libya, the state continues to be torn apart by competing claims, or, as in Yemen and Libya, oil money sustains militias and continuing conflict over resources.

But oil and gas money can be enormously important in helping post-war reconstruction. Hydrocarbons provide one of the few concentrated, accessible sources of government revenues and export earnings. It is crucial to use them wisely, and not dissipate them in corruption or unproductive subsidies.

Syria’s oil and gas output could revive to an extent, with better security and waivers to international sanctions. In the longer term, more resources could be found in deeper drilling in the north-east, and in offshore exploration, continuing successful geological trends from Cyprus and Israel.

Building a low-carbon electricity system

But the country also has a great opportunity to rebuild its electricity system in a low-carbon way. A post-Assad regime can use the areas of open desert to emulate the successful solar programmes of nearby countries such as Jordan. Small-scale solar, including rooftop photovoltaic panels with batteries, and water heating, would restore energy access quickly. Lebanon and Yemen have been surprising success stories in this regard, as has, further afield, Pakistan.

There are some good areas of wind along the coastal ranges, the Palmyrid mountains running to the Euphrates, the Anti-Lebanon range, and south of Damascus. A peaceful Syria could be a key node in an integrated Middle East energy system that finally links up the Gulf, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey.

It's very early days, of course. But Syrians and their international well-wishers should understand energy is a core issue for rebuilding a functioning state, economy and human welfare.