ACWA Power, TAQA among Saudi firms backing Syria's energy comeback
Some 14 years of civil war have wiped at least $800 billion from the country’s gross domestic product, according to UN figures.
Saudi companies signed seven energy agreements with Syria’s Ministry of Energy in Damascus on Thursday, spanning renewable energy, oil and gas, as the war-torn country seeks foreign investment to revive its national grid and expand its energy sector.
What happened: Among the agreements signed at the Damascus International Fair on Thursday was a deal between Saudi energy giant ACWA Power and Syria’s Energy Ministry to conduct studies and submit proposals for solar projects and storage systems with a capacity of up to 1,000 megawatts, as well as wind projects with a capacity of up to 1,500 MW, according to the Saudi Press Agency. The agreement also includes assessing existing Syrian solar plants and presenting plans for their rehabilitation and upgrading, as well as conducting studies to evaluate the Syrian national grid.
Another six memorandums of understanding were signed covering exploration and development of existing gas fields, drilling, natural gas processing and conversion into energy, according to SPA. Those agreements also covered geophysical and geological surveying, seismic data acquisition, processing and interpretation, and research and development in geosciences.
The six other energy agreements include the following:
