Shafaq News- Damascus

One person was killed and three others injured on Saturday after an Iraqi fuel tanker convoy exploded on Syria’s M4 highway near Idlib while transporting fuel to the Baniyas refinery.

Mushir Al-Ramah, director of the General Authority for Border Crossings and Customs office, told Shafaq News that the convoy was carrying Iraqi fuel from the Al-Yarubiyah border crossing when two tankers lost braking capability and collided within the convoy, leading to an explosion and a large fire.

The convoy was part of expanding Iraqi fuel shipments to Syria through the M4 corridor toward the Mediterranean coast as Baghdad increasingly redirects exports through Syria following disruptions in Gulf shipping due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Baniyas, Syria’s main refining hub, has a processing capacity of about 125,000 barrels per day. In April, Safwan Sheikh Ahmad, director of corporate communications at the Syrian Petroleum Company, told Anadolu Agency that Iraqi fuel flows to the refinery were expected to reach around 500,000 metric tons per month, with unloading capacity raised to about 500 tanker trucks daily.

Read more: Kirkuk–Baniyas Pipeline: Iraq’s direct oil lifeline to the Mediterranean