Baghdad – WAA
The Ministry of Electricity confirmed today, Sunday, that the additional government allocations amounting to 300 billion dinars will support the advancement of the transportation and distribution sectors, especially in the current summer, while it confirmed support for energy production with two new stations in Kirkuk, one of which will be opened in the coming few days.
The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Electricity for Production Affairs, Adel Karim, told the (INA): “The financial allocations set by the government are very good and will be invested in purchasing transformers, specialized wheels, and technical equipment necessary for the distribution and transmission networks, especially since most of the problems we recorded occurred in the transmission and distribution sectors.”
He explained that “these allocations are not the first of their kind, as the government has previously allocated large sums of money and significant support to the Ministry of Electricity, especially through the Iraqi-Chinese framework agreement, as well as the agreement with Siemens and General Electric, in addition to what is allocated in the budget under direct instructions from the Prime Minister, which allowed the purchase of additional energy from the stopped units in the Kurdistan Region by more than a thousand megawatts to supply the northern governorates and a part of Diyala Governorate.”
Regarding the new projects, Karim explained that “the molasses station in Kirkuk will be opened in the coming days, and work is underway to operate the Kirkuk station. These two stations could add 700 megawatts as a first phase.”
He added, “Work is also underway on the Anbar Combined Cycle Station, and we hope it will enter service next year.”
On June 24, the Council of Ministers issued decisions to support the electricity sector, followed by a second session held on July 2, approving an increase in the financial allocations for the Ministry of Electricity, on account of the operating budget by (300) billion dinars, to cover the work as follows: 1-(125) billion dinars for the emergency plan bottleneck projects, which were launched based on the directives of the Prime Minister, to resolve the bottlenecks in the distribution sector, and include (critical projects, feeders, and rehabilitation of stations), and the Ministry bears the safety of the procedures. 2-(100) billion dinars to purchase transformers (self-powered, capacity, distribution), for the transmission and distribution sectors, from the Ministry of Industry and Minerals. 3-(75) billion dinars to purchase specialized mechanisms for the distribution sector, according to the controls.