2024-02-11T12:20:08+00:00
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/ The Iraqi Ministry of Electricity announced on Sunday that the supply of gas imported from Iran has decreased due to “maintenance” work, indicating that it will be replaced with “kerosene” to prevent power outages.
The Minister of Electricity, Ziad Ali Fadhil, told Agency, “The current rate of electrical energy supply has reached 18 thousand megawatts, and we have a decrease in the rate of imported gas, which has reached about 15 million.”
He explained that “the decrease in imported gas was due to joint maintenance work with the Iranian side on the imported gas pipelines,” noting that “the maintenance work will end in the middle of this February, after which the gas will be resumed and return to normal.”
Minister Fadel pointed out that “there is a plan that the ministry is working on and has submitted to the Council of Ministers that focuses on increasing the rate of energy production at a higher rate than last summer, in addition to a campaign to maintain production units in preparation for the next summer season.”
For his part, a source in the Ministry of Electricity told Agency, “The pressure of Iranian gas decreased last month, which prompted the Ministry of Electricity to move towards using kerosene as fuel to operate the production units to stabilize the supply of electrical energy continuously and not to cut it off.”
The source pointed out that “the production units consume more than 30 thousand liters of kerosene per hour.”
Earlier today, Sunday, Jordan and Iraq signed the first amendment document to the electricity sale contract to supply the Iraqi side with electricity at a voltage of 132 kilovolts to feed the loads of the Rutba area estimated at about 40 megawatts.
The document was signed on the Jordanian side by the Director General of the National Electricity Company, Amjad Al-Rawashdeh, and on the Iraqi side by the Director General of the General Company for Electricity Transmission/Central Region, Riyad Aribi, in the presence of officials from both parties.
Iraq is holding talks with Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia, to import electricity from them by linking its organization with the Gulf system, after it had relied on Iran alone during the past years by importing 1,200 megawatts as well as gas fuel to feed local power stations.
Iraq has been suffering from a chronic electricity shortage crisis for decades due to the blockade and successive wars. For many years, residents have been protesting the frequent power outages, especially in the summer, when temperatures sometimes reach 50 degrees Celsius.