Gulf companies are moving into Iraq’s overland route to the Mediterranean

Gulf companies are moving into the overland route between Iraq and the Mediterranean, with Qatari firms working on the road, the fuel supply, and a planned pipeline, and Abu Dhabi weighing a link of its own. For Iraq, the route is an outlet while Gulf shipping is disrupted, and cargo has started moving both ways across the border: fuel oil west to Baniyas for export, and gasoline east into Iraq.

What’s on the table: Damascus signed a USD 147 mn contract with Qatar’s Almohannadi for Roads, Trading, and Contracting (MRTC) to rehabilitate and expand the highway to the Al Tanf border crossing, state news agency Sana reports. The contract adds a second carriageway across 215 km, covering the 170-km stretch from the Al Busayri junction to Al Tanf and a 45-km section from Al Sabaa Biyar to Al Busayri, and MRTC will also rehabilitate the existing road and install safety features over 900 days.

Qatar’s role runs through the fuel as well as the road: Iraq has been pushing fuel oil through Syria for export via Baniyas, with traders estimating that more than 600k tons reached Syria in June, and imported gasoline began moving the other way in September. Iraq’s state oil marketer Somo buys the gasoline from Qatar’s UCC Holding, which ships it to Baniyas, and the Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC) trucks it into Iraq through Al Tanf under a renewable three-month agreement, making Syria the transit operator rather than the supplier. UCC also co-leads the planned Iraq-Syria pipeline.

Qatar isn’t the only Gulf name on the route: UAE-Syria talks in June covered connecting Syrian ports with Iraq’s Umm Qasr and onward to Khalifa Port, alongside dry ports and a logistics hub at Al Tanf. AD Ports has already launched a Khalifa-Umm Qasr service, though the Syrian leg remains under discussion. Dubai’s DP World holds a separate 30-year, USD 800 mn concession to redevelop and operate Tartus, and France’s CMA CGM signed an agreement to operate dry ports in Adra, outside Damascus, and Aleppo, building on its 30-year Latakia concession and EUR 230 mn investment program.

Trucks can’t match seaborne volumes, and the first crude trucks are running late. Moving fuel oil west keeps storage from backing up into Iraq’s refineries, but trucks can’t match the volumes or economics of seaborne exports, transport and logistics specialist Ziya Mammadov previously told us. The first Iraqi crude trucks were expected by mid-October, about three months behind schedule. The indicative requirement of around 1k trucks carrying 220 barrels each would move some 220k bbl/d, against Iraq’s roughly 2.7 mn bbl/d of crude exports last month.

The bigger hedge is underground: Chevron, UCC Holding, and TI Capital plan to lead the proposed USD 15 bn Basra-Baniyas pipeline, designed to carry up to 2 mn bbl/d, and TotalEnergies is seeking a 10% stake. The project is in preliminary engineering, with construction potentially starting in 1Q 2027 and taking about four years after a final investment decision.

The road isn’t the bottleneck

A wider highway can still end in a longer queue: Baniyas already handles around 900 tanker trucks a day, with queues stretching beyond 30 km, and its 1.5-2 mn barrels of aging storage would hold only about seven to nine days of crude at full trucking rates, according to our October reporting. SPC plans more storage, but unloading capacity and truck turnaround still cap throughput. Syria and Iraq also agreed in September to link their customs systems digitally to speed clearance across their three official crossings: Al Qaim-Abu Kamal, open since June 2025, and Al Tanf-Waleed and Yarubiyah-Rabia, both reopened in April.

The signal: The highway contract fixes one constraint on a route that already works. Turning it into a dependable corridor will take port and storage capacity at Baniyas, predictable clearance, and security along the eastern desert route, where sabotage has repeatedly hit Syria’s gas grid. The same frictions, including back-to-back truck transfers, patchy ins., and armed escorts, run through our earlier coverage of Syria’s role as a land bridge.