Russian companies would be the preferred choice to work in oil and gas production in Syria, according to a member of Russia's Parliament who had met Syrian President Bashar Assad.
According to Sputnik, which quoted Dmitry Sablin, Assad told a visiting Russian delegation of lawmakers that neither Iran nor China has companies with a worldwide reputation in the oil and gas sector like Russia has. Therefore, Assad "sees only the work of Russian companies", Sablin said.
According to Sablin - as quoted by Russia's TASS news agency - Assad had said at their meeting that Syria was ready for direct talks with representatives of all the opposition groups, including armed ones.
Another Russian Member of Parliament, Sergey Gavrilov, told TASS after the meeting with Assad that the Syrian president hoped there would be "serious changes" in many sectors in Syria, including oil and gas production and transportation.
Last week Syrian Prime Minister Imad Khamis claimed that terrorist attacks over the past two months have cost the country's oil sector a total of US$2 billion. Khamis said the Syrian government was working hard to secure oil production and restore electricity to the minimum level, promising that by the middle of February, consumers will see marked improvement in terms of the availability of electricity.
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The government also said it was working to restore production in its agricultural sector, as well as trade, and has begun updating legislation to that effect.
At the beginning of this year, Iran and Syria signed five memorandums of understanding (MoU), one of them related to construction of oil and gas storage facilities and terminals in Syria. The move is said to be an Iranian vow of support for Syrian political initiatives that will help to guarantee independent and territorial integrity.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More