The Fall of the Syrian regime resurrecting the Qatari gas pipeline project

According to experts, the fall of Bashar al Assad and the Baath regime that has been in power in Syria for 61 years has brought back to the forefront the Qatar-Türkiye Natural Gas Pipeline project, which the ousted regime had opposed in 2009.

In an interview with the Turkish Anadolu news Agency, Bushra Zeynep Ozdemir, a researcher at the Turkish Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), said that Syria is a very important country for Qatar in terms of exporting natural gas.

She pointed out that Qatar is the third country in the world in terms of natural gas reserves, with approximately 250 trillion cubic meters.

She explained that Qatar is the second largest gas exporter in the world after Russia.

She pointed out that the Dolphin project for transporting Qatari gas, which entered service in 2004 and is 370 km long, is the only pipeline for exporting Qatari gas (connecting Qatar, the UAE and the Sultanate of Oman).

She stressed that Qatar has a high capacity for natural gas exports, however, the region in which the country is located has a very fragile structure.

She pointed out that the Qatar-Türkiye natural gas pipeline project, which was on the agenda in 2009 and was supposed to pass through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, was postponed due to opposition from the Assad regime.

Ozdemir added that the Syrian revolution, which lasted for more than 10 years, made the project impossible to implement, but after establishing a stable regime in Syria, it can be said that the project won’t face any political obstacles in the region if the current situation continues.

She stressed the enormity of the aforementioned project, as building a very long pipeline from Qatar to Türkiye is very expensive, pointing out the importance of the project also in terms of influencing gas prices in global markets.

She pointed out that Türkiye is considered one of the largest natural gas markets in the region, as it’s the second country after Germany in gas imports, but it has long-term contracts with Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan.

In this regard, Europe has a sensitive approach to long-term contracts due to the negatives it has experienced with Russia, adding that Europe has a goal of zero emissions until 2050, so it must abandon the use of coal-fired thermal power plants and replace them with natural gas plants, according to Ozdemir.

She stressed that with the increasing use of natural gas in Europe and Türkiye, Qatari gas would be in great demand in the European continent.

In turn, Anne-Sophie Corbeau, an expert at the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, said that the Qatari gas pipeline through Türkiye is very long, so buyers must make long-term commitments.

She pointed out that the project could take until 2030 to complete, and that Europe has a goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

She pointed out that Syria is still far from being stable in the current situation, and at the same time, US LNG exporters are also trying to sell LNG to the European market, so it is a race.

She added, “It’s also unknown whether Saudi Arabia will agree to extend these pipelines through its territory or not… If Türkiye wants to sign this agreement, the situation will change”.

She said, “Türkiye has fewer concerns about gas demand and welcomes diversification of its resources”.