113: Chapter 113: Isn't this rental scale too large?

General Faraj received approval from high-ranking officials of the Syrian government to continue cooperation with Russia on leasing oil and natural gas, and he immediately contacted Major General Zaha.

"Major General Zaha, prepare yourself and go with Colonel Andrei to Russia immediately to conduct negotiations for the oil and natural gas leasing cooperation. The negotiation delegation members can be the same as the ones who went to Iran last time," General Faraj ordered directly.

"Go to Russia for negotiations immediately?" Major General Zaha was surprised; he had only just returned to Zarzur when he received this order.

"Yes, start the negotiations immediately and strive to secure as much procurement funding as possible," General Faraj demanded.

If Syria could manage to lease more oil and natural gas, then they would have more funds to procure weapons and equipment, their army would be better armed, and their offensive against the USA and the Opposition Armed Forces it supported would proceed more smoothly.

"Yes, General. Are there any requirements regarding the quantity of oil and natural gas to be leased? For example, is there a maximum scale?" Major General Zaha asked cautiously.

"There is no upper limit. Strive to secure as much as you can; we can deal with the repayment later," General Faraj did not want to set any restrictions for Major General Zaha.

"Then, after I arrive in Russia, which Russian official should I coordinate with?" Major General Zaha had previously sought out Lieutenant Colonel Haidari to connect with high-ranking officials from the Persian Lion State National Guard to finalize the oil and natural gas leasing cooperation.

Although Major General Zaha had dealt with some Russian officers in Syria, these officers could not reach high-ranking Russian government or military officials, so he could not establish a connection through them.

"You don't need to worry. I have already communicated with the Russian military representative stationed in Syria, and he will make introductions for a special representative of the Russian government to negotiate with you."

General Faraj had naturally made arrangements beforehand; otherwise, if Major General Zaha went to Russia and wandered around like a headless chicken without finding someone who could make decisions, it would be unknown when they might be able to lease the oil and natural gas.

"Yes, General. I will negotiate with the special representative of the Russian government and strive to secure more oil and natural gas leasing cooperation," Major General Zaha quickly replied.

Being able to connect with a special representative of the Russian government at least indicated that Russia was quite sincere. The probability of reaching an oil and natural gas leasing cooperation agreement would be high, but the scale of what could be negotiated would depend on the actual talks.

Major General Zaha could only arrange the military affairs in Zarzur and strictly order all units to prepare for airstrikes from the USA, ensuring that the USA would not have an opportunity to take advantage of the situation and destroy the military bases under his control.

Major General Zaha quickly arrived in Damascus and led the negotiation delegation directly to Omsk.

Since Syria was negotiating for oil and natural gas leasing cooperation, Russia chose Omsk directly as the location for the negotiations.

As an oil city, Omsk possesses four oil production areas and one natural gas production area, making it the world's second-largest natural gas production region and third-largest oil production region. Due to the development of the Tyumen Oil Field, this city is very famous in Russia and around the world.

As soon as Major General Zaha arrived in Omsk, he met with the special representative of the Russian government, Deputy Minister of Energy Vyacheslav. Vyacheslav received Major General Zaha and his party very warmly.

Before the negotiations began, Vyacheslav also led Major General Zaha and his party to visit an oil production area and a natural gas production area in Omsk for a day, allowing Major General Zaha to understand the oil and natural gas extraction and production situation in Russia.

Vyacheslav held a welcoming attitude toward the arrival of Major General Zaha. Currently, due to the joint sanctions imposed on Russia by European countries led by the USA, Russia's oil and natural gas had experienced a significant backlog, causing storage costs to rise sharply.

They could only reduce oil and natural gas inventories by cutting production. However, controlling oil and natural gas storage costs through this method was simply unsustainable.

The best solution was to find a new buyer to purchase all the extracted and produced oil and natural gas, so that the oil and natural gas production areas could carry out extraction and production work normally, without leading to uncontrollable events due to production shutdowns.

The oil and natural gas leasing cooperation negotiations officially began after visiting the oil and natural gas production areas.

Vyacheslav introduced the situation first: "Russia's maximum daily oil production exceeds 11.25 million barrels, with an annual output reaching 3.8 billion barrels, and the maximum annual natural gas output exceeds 760 billion cubic meters. I wonder how much oil and natural gas Syria intends to lease?"

"Of course, the more, the better. Can we lease 1 billion barrels of oil and 200 billion cubic meters of natural gas directly?" Major General Zaha opened his mouth with a lion's share request.

Although Syria's oil reserves were only 2.5 billion barrels, who knew if new oil production areas would be discovered in the future?

Similarly, with natural gas reserves of 650 billion cubic meters, they needed to return 50 billion cubic meters to Iran, leaving 600 billion cubic meters remaining. Taking one-third of that for leasing wasn't excessive, was it?!

"1 billion barrels of oil? 200 billion cubic meters of natural gas?" Vyacheslav repeated.

He had initially thought that Major General Zaha would only lease a small amount of oil and natural gas; he hadn't expected Major General Zaha to immediately report such a large scale for oil and natural gas leasing.

Russia was not unable to provide that much oil and natural gas, but they also needed to consider whether Syria would be able to repay it. If they leased it to Syria, but in the end, they were unable to receive the oil and natural gas returned by Syria on time, wouldn't that mean Russia would suffer a loss?

"Is this leasing scale too large?" Vyacheslav asked with a frown.

"This quantity is not large. The oil only accounts for one-quarter of Russia's annual output, and the natural gas only accounts for 25% of Russia's annual output. Russia should be able to provide that much oil and natural gas, right?" Major General Zaha tried to confuse the concepts.

"What I mean is, does Syria have enough oil and natural gas to repay it?" Vyacheslav had to emphasize.

"Syria is located in the Persian Gulf region, and its oil and natural gas are also very abundant. Although nominally Syria's oil reserves are only 2.5 billion barrels and natural gas reserves are only 650 billion cubic meters, there are still many places in Syria that have not been surveyed, and the territorial waters have not been explored either."

Major General Zaha continued, "As far as I know, Lebanon's waters have over 800 million barrels of oil and 2.5 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. I think Syria's waters should also have quite a lot of oil and natural gas."

Major General Zaha could only try his best to bluff; in any case, Syria's waters certainly had oil and natural gas, but as for how much, who knew at this moment?

Furthermore, no one could predict how difficult it would be to extract this oil and natural gas.