Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met delegations from U.S. oil major Chevron and the Syrian Petroleum Company to discuss cooperation in oil and gas exploration fields on Syrian shores, the Syrian state news agency said on Tuesday.

The state news agency did not provide further details on the discussions. Chevron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The meeting was also attended by representatives from Qatar’s UCC Holding, the state news agency said. The company recently led a consortium of international companies that signed a memorandum of understanding to develop major power generation projects with a foreign investment valued at about $7 billion.

Due to the destruction of energy infrastructure during its 14-year civil war, Syria today produces just a fraction of the electricity it needs, though the supply of power has improved notably in recent months thanks to gas from Azerbaijan and Qatar.

Damascus has recently pledged to ramp up power supply.

Syria’s domestic natural gas production is estimated to have declined to 3 billion cubic metres in 2023 from 8.7 bcm in 2011 due to the war.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Jaidaa Taha and Muhammad Al Gebaly; editing by Mark Heinrich and Alistair Bell)