Syria leans on Iraq to keep cement production flowing

Shafaq News – Damascus

Syria relies on Iraq and several regional partners for the energy inputs and clinker needed to keep its cement plants running amid a prolonged fuel shortage, a senior Syrian official said on Thursday.

Mahmoud Fadila, the head of the General Company for Cement and Building Materials, told the state news agency SANA that the lack of fuel oil needed to power cement kilns has forced factories to temporarily rely on coal-fired systems and to import clinker from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye to keep the local market supplied.

Notably, Damascus has approved a major Iraqi investment to boost domestic production. In October, the Ministry of Economy and Industry signed a memorandum of understanding with Iraq’s Vertex Group to rehabilitate and expand the third production line at the Hama Cement Plant. The agreement raises capacity from 3,300 to 5,000 tons per day and adds a new 6,000-ton line, boosting the plant’s planned output to about 11,000 tons per day.

Syria currently produces about 10,000 tons of cement per day—around 3.6 million tons a year—well below the 8–9 million tons needed annually for reconstruction, leaving a wide gap that the government aims to reduce through imports and external investment.