Northern Iraq Secures Vital Infrastructure Upgrades

20 Sep 2019 Issue: 62 / 38 By: Waylon Fairbanks

Iraq’s war-stricken north is finally seeing vital investment from Baghdad toward rehabilitating key infrastructure. Siemens this week signed up to rebuild two powerplants, whilst increased refining runs at the partly-rebuilt Baiji refinery have pushed Iraq’s total refining output over 800,000 b/d for the first time ever.

Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity this week signed an agreement with Germany’s Siemens and Egypt’s Orascom Construction to rebuild two powerplants with a combined capacity of 1.69GW at Baiji in northern Iraq. Once the Ministry of Finance approves funding and the Council of Ministers signs off, the project will take 28 months to complete, making 2022 the best case scenario. The ministry release puts the value of the contract at $1.32bn.

The project is no doubt important to the country’s broader plans to boost national powergen capacity and end the perennial blackouts that have plagued Iraq for decades (MEES, 26 April) – a priority made all the more important by the domestic and international political concerns over Iraq’s electricity woes (MEES, 13 September). (CONTINUED - 849 WORDS)