Resource-rich yet underdeveloped, Syria’s northeast could pay dividends

The land between the Euphrates and Tigris yields oil, water, and wheat, to name but three, yet it has had no infrastructure investment for decades. As a result, it is unproductive. That could change.

AFP

A sheep herder near the Rumaylan military site in northeastern Syria, January 8, 2025

Resource-rich yet underdeveloped, Syria’s northeast could pay dividends

Attiya Khalaf Al-Attiya

last update on 11 Feb 2025

Located in the east, bounded by the Euphrates River to the west and the Tigris River to the east, the Syrian region of Al-Jazira accounts for around 41% of Syria’s total land area and is worth fighting for.

The region has variously been known as Syria’s breadbasket, its oil reservoir, green island, and wheat capital because it holds 50% of Syria’s oil, 64% of its water, 55% of its wheat, and 78% of its cotton. Yet, in official documents, it is “under-developed” both socially and economically. The Syrian state has not cared for it.

Al-Jazira comprises three governorates—Deir ez-Zor, Al-Raqqa, and Al-Hasakah (commonly referred to as the Eastern Governorates)—and used to include the former Euphrates Governorate, which was later divided into Deir ez-Zor and Al-Raqqa. It shares frontiers with Iraq to the east and Türkiye to the north.

Its residents make up around 7% of Syria’s total population, with 64% living in rural areas and 36% in cities. According to estimates by the Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics, the governorate’s population stood at 1.27 million ten years ago.

AFP — A farmer harvests wheat fields in Raqqa, northeastern Syria, May 23, 2024.

Richly endowed

It has vast agricultural wealth, with large livestock numbers, abundant water supplies, and oil and gas reserves, yet it lacks supporting infrastructure, such as an oil refinery or power generation plants.

Although it is a leading producer of wheat, barley, and cotton, it has no factories for food processing, fodder, fertilisers, or cotton-based industries such as textiles, and despite being a centre for livestock farming, it lacks any large-scale dairy and cheese production facilities. Raw materials are simply shipped out to other regions.

When widespread protests against former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad began in 2011, demands at first focused on issues such as improved living conditions and industrial development, but the regime responded with military force, and this violence suppression led to the widespread destruction of infrastructure.

Roads were blocked, and production ground to a halt. Al-Jazira's oil facilities were vandalised and looted, acres of farmland were rendered unusable, water sources dried up, and dozens of economic projects stopped.

Bountiful agriculture

In 2011, Al-Jazira's wheat production reached 2.15 million tonnes (55% of Syria's total output). Al-Hasakah alone accounted for more than 50%. Meanwhile, the region's cotton yield stood at 523,000 tonnes, which equated to 78% of Syria's total production that year (Al-Hasakah contributing 35%).

Syria's northeast has large livestock numbers, abundant water supplies, and oil and gas reserves but no supporting infrastructure

Abdullah Al-Fares, a professor of economics at the University of Aleppo and a native of Al-Hasakah, says it is reliant on agriculture and carbons, with farming serving as the region's backbone owing to the variety of strategic crops it produces and the large number of people it employs (85% of the area's population).

Al-Hasakah's climate and environment mean it is well-suited to growing wheat, a Syrian dietary staple. It also produces huge amounts of barley and cotton. But figures have been falling. In 2011, Al-Hasakah's wheat production was 1.7mn tonnes. By 2018, it was just 240,000 tonnes.

Al-Fares said several factors contributed to this dramatic decline, including prolonged droughts, decreasing rainfall, large-scale displacement of farmers due to military operations, rising production costs, a reduction in irrigated farmland due to soaring fuel prices and power outages, the lack of fertiliser, and a decline in seed quality.

During the rule of Hafez and then Bashar al-Assad for the past half a century, Damascus provided loans for the agricultural sector, including for well drilling and for shifting from rain-fed to irrigated farming. Yet the prioritisation of cotton cultivation as a strategic crop proved impractical because cotton requires vast amounts of water, which led to the region's groundwater reserves becoming severely depleted.

The livestock sector has historically played a crucial role in Syria's economy, not just from meat and dairy but also wool and leather, accounting for more than 37% of agricultural production before 2011. Before the war, it was home to around three million sheep (or 18% of the country's total stock, according to Al-Fares). In 2012, its total value was estimated at $3.17bn. It has long been the primary form of income in the region.

AFP — The Rumaylan oil field in northeastern Syria, near the Turkish border, January 8, 2025.

Syria's black gold

Syria's oil production has always been relatively modest, but this has nevertheless been a key contributor to the country's GDP. Oil remains one of the main points of contention between Damascus and the SDF. Given Syria's desperate need for economic resources to finance its post-war reconstruction, control over these oil fields could help determine the country's future.

In 2011, the output was around 380,000 barrels per day (bpd). Syria used to export around 180,000 bpd, which played a critical role in securing foreign currency for the state. Al-Hasakah Governorate alone accounted for roughly 200,000 bpd.

Al-Fares attributes the sharp decline in Syria's oil production to the ongoing conflict. Today, most of Al-Hasakah's oil fields are no longer controlled by the central government in Damascus but by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) led by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), whose leaders are Kurds.

During the Syrian civil war, Islamic State (IS) fighters took control of the oil fields in the Shaddadi area in southern Al-Hasakah, specifically the Jibsa Oil Fields Directorate, but after IS was ousted by the SDF with direct support from the US, all oil resources in the region came under SDF control.

In the 1990s, new oil reserves were discovered in Deir ez-Zor, boosting national production to around 650,000 bpd. Today, production is only around 90,000 bpd, around 20,000 barrels of which is transported overland to Damascus via a middleman company owned by former Syrian MP Hussam Qaterji. The rest is sold cheaply to rudimentary refineries or taken to Iraqi Kurdistan or Turkish-backed territories in northern Syria.

As for natural gas, the region holds an estimated 13% of Syria's discovered gas reserves, and this also plays a key role in the strategic dispute between the new Syrian authority and the SDF. There are two gas production plants: one in Rmelan, which has a production capacity of approximately 12,000 gas cylinders (sold at $8 per cylinder) and another in Shaddadi. Both are operated by the AANES.

Given Syria's desperate need for money to finance its post-war reconstruction, control over its oil fields may determine its future

A region of possibility

During his rule, Bashar al-Assad visited Al-Hasakah twice, once in 2002 and again in 2011, just days before the uprising against him began, when he announced a government scheme to divert water from the Tigris River. An ambitious yet unrealised project, the Tigris River Water Diversion Scheme is designed to replenish groundwater reserves and irrigate vast agricultural lands.

Al-Fares cites a study of human development indicators showing that the region had the lowest growth rates and the highest poverty levels in the country (11% in cities and 18% in the countryside, compared to a national average of 4%). Assad-era policy planners wanted to reduce regional unemployment and poverty, increase school enrolment rates, increase agricultural productivity by 30%, improve electricity generation by 90%, and develop border communities along the Syrian-Turkish frontier.

Yet despite the promises, nothing of substance ever materialised, and when al-Assad removed subsidies on oil products (meaning diesel suddenly became 3.5 times more expensive), it hit agriculture particularly hard. Irrigation became unaffordable, so most farmers abandoned irrigation altogether. This led to widespread agricultural decline.

With al-Assad gone, the region hopes to get the support it needs, yet Al-Fares highlights the region's complete lack of strategic projects, including the absence of a gas-powered electricity generation plant. Al-Hasakah Governorate requires 800MW of electricity, yet its only power station only ever produced 100MW at peak capacity, and this station suffered severe damage due to Turkish airstrikes.

The Agricultural Bank, which helped finance farmers, has been out of action since 2011, the Seed Multiplication Directorate (supplying high-quality seeds for major crops) needs to be revived, and the region needs an oil refinery, to meet its own needs. Beyond that, roads and rail links need to reconnect the area with the rest of Syria, schools need refurbishing, and a university should be established to provide higher education.

For a region so richly endowed in natural resources, the opportunity is clearly there. If a political solution between the region's Kurdish groups and the Sunni Arabs in Damascus, the future could be bright.

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