US oil firm HKN aims to double Syria's output as it takes over Kurdish-run fields

A Texas-based oil and gas company, HKN Energy, became the first US company to officially invest in Syria, signing a 25-year agreement in April with Syria’s state-run Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC). The agreement gives HKN an allocation of oil to refine for domestic consumption in northeastern Syria, as first reported by Al-Monitor in June.

HKN has started operations at eight fields around the town of Rmeilan in the Kurdish-administered part of northeast Syria. Those fields used to be run by the Jazira Oil Company, or JOC, which was taken over by the Kurds after the start of Syria’s civil conflict in 2011 and the Assad regime’s withdrawal from the area.

HKN has partnered with Qatar’s UCC Holding but will be the sole operator of the fields.

The company has a long record of doing business in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.