With the regime of former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad having fallen just a few weeks ago, neighbour Turkey has indicated that it may be willing to help Syria rebuild its oil and gas production.

“We are studying the use of crude oil and natural gas for reconstruction of Syria,” said Alparslan Bayraktar, who has served as Turkey’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources since 2023.

Speaking to several media outlets, Bayraktar added that Turkey plans “to tell our counterparts how we can make contributions in that sense. Our objective is to develop these projects.”

Turkey was also already working to help Syria with its electricity supply, he said.

For several years, Syria’s oil and gas production has been struggling under a raft of international sanctions, and since the toppling of the regime, almost all imports from Iran have ceased.

Before the 2011 uprising, the country’s oil production hovered around 400,000 barrels per day (bpd), but by mid-2015, this had dropped to 25,000bpd.

By 2023, this had risen slightly to approximately 92,000bpd, but dropped again in 2024 to 80,000bpd.

Turkey (along with several other nations) backed the Syrian rebels who overthrew al-Assad after a 13-year civil war, and was one of the first countries to reopen its Damascus embassy.