“The contract was made by the oil ministry with a foreign company, and the company will export 600 mmscf [million standard cubic feet] of LNG … which will help produce more than 3,000 megawatts of energy,” ministry spokesperson Ahmed Musa told Rudaw. “This will meet the citizens’ needs during the cold winter season.”
Musa said that the electricity ministry does not know which country the gas will be imported from.
Despite its vast oil and gas reserves, Iraq suffers from chronic electricity shortages. In July, Musa told Rudaw that the country’s power system produces 27,450 megawatts of electricity, but the required load is an average of 48,000 megawatts.
The country’s electricity demand increases to approximately 55,000 megawatts in the summer, according to Musa.
In early February, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani revealed that his government plans to add at least 15,000 megawatts to the country’s national grid to reach “record” production.
For years, Iraq’s electrical grid has depended on gas imports from Iran to run its power plants. The country lost nearly 5,000 megawatts of power in July 2023 due to Iran completely halting the supply of gas to the southern regions of Iraq, as well as decreasing exports to Baghdad and other central provinces.
