"During the past few years, it [Tatneft] is the first Russian company to have concluded a contract for participating in the extraction of oil in Syria. We are very happy about this," Syria's Oil Minister Ibrahim Haddad said at the contract signing ceremony.
According to Haddad, Syria welcomes Russian companies' participation in tenders for developing oil and gas deposits in the country, taking into consideration the vast experience of bilateral cooperation in this area.
Tatneft Deputy General Director Khamit Kaveyev noted that this is the first contract signed by a Russian company after the visit of Syrian President Bashar Asad to Moscow in January 2005. Following the talks in Moscow, Russian and Syrian companies announced cooperation, Kaveyev recalled.
According to Kaveyev, a "certain break" between Russian and Syrian oil workers occurred during the past 15-20 years, but many oil workers who worked in Syria remember well the deposits in the country.
The contract stipulates that Tatneft and the Syrian state oil company should be given the exclusive right to explore and extract oil and gas on land plot No. 27 in the Albu Kamal district of the Dayar al-Zur province in. The plot's total area is more than 1,900 sq km.
In keeping with the agreement, within seven years Tatneft should allocate more than $26 million for exploration and $1 million for financing social and educational programs in Syria.
A Tatneft representative noted that the company intends to amass necessary amount of work experience in the Middle East in order to be ready for possible work in Iraq. "It is important for us to get a job in the region in order to accumulate certain experience and to be prepared for work in neighboring Iraq," the spokesperson said.
Syria now extracts 550,000 barrels of oil a day. It plans to increase oil output to 700,000 barrels a day within the next few years.
During the past few years, Syria has concluded a number of large contracts with oil companies from Canada, the United States, China and Europe.
