The extended disruption caused by the US-Iran conflict highlights a need for diversifying energy export routes to reduce dependency on shipping via the Strait of Hormuz. A new initiative launched by the Washington, DC-based New Lines Institute seeks to develop Syria and Turkey into major energy distribution hubs.

The Four Seas Initiative outlines an expansive framework for redirecting energy export flows in ways that can lessen European dependence on Russian and Iranian oil and gas while directing investment from Gulf states toward Western-aligned infrastructure projects.

The initiative – spanning the Persian Gulf, along with the Black, Caspian and Mediterranean seas – strives to expand overland export routes out of the Gulf toward Syria and Turkey, via Iraq and Jordan. An ancillary component calls for connecting new export routes with export networks in the Caspian and Black Sea basins.   

“The post-Assad stabilization of Syria opens a narrow but historically decisive window to transform the Levant from a theater of energy conflict into a continental energy corridor,” states a concept paper published by the New Lines Institute (NLI). 

“The Four Seas Initiative would deliver four compounding strategic goods: European energy sovereignty from Russian and Iranian dependence; American commercial primacy in the Middle East’s most strategically leveraged infrastructure; Syrian economic reconstruction underwritten by transit revenues; and a durable geopolitical settlement that rewards alignment with the West,” 

The Four Seas concept is modelled after a similar framework in which 13 European Union member states are participating, dubbed the Three Seas Initiative. Launched in 2015, the Three Seas promotes connectivity in a variety of economic spheres, including energy, transportation and digital infrastructure.

The Four Seas plan calls for the establishment of an infrastructure consortium capable of mobilising up to $10bn to build pipelines along the Gulf-Mediterranean corridor. Once built out, the new exports routes are envisioned as being able to transport up to 4mn barrels of oil per day of oil and up to 50bn cubic metres per year of gas to Mediterranean and European markets. This would enable Syria to generate from $8bn to $12bn annually in combined production and transit revenues, providing a steady revenue stream to rebuild the country.

Experts at the June 11 launch event in Washington lauded the Four Seas as realistic. But some pointed out that implementation still faces considerable challenges. 

“We see the need to find alternative routes to get things [energy] out,” said Robert F. Cekuta, a retired US diplomat who served as ambassador to Azerbaijan. “This is also a way to bring Syria back into the [community] of nations; it has been self-isolated for way too long. The downside is that you have to get people to sit down and get into the practicalities, to get into details to help make this happen, in terms of corporate relations, get companies involved, not just the oil companies, but the construction companies.”

This article was originally published on Eurasianet here.