Media Monitor
Iraq’s electricity minister warns of summer power shortages amid fuel and payment challenges
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Electricity Minister Ziyad Ali Fadel warned that the country will face serious power supply constraints this summer due to fuel shortages and delayed payments for imported Iranian gas.
“The biggest challenge we will face—and I’m not afraid of it, but I am concerned—is the issue of fuel that powers the production units,” Fadel said in an interview with Al Hadath TV. He noted that Iraq’s power generation relies heavily on imported gas, which remains vulnerable to sanctions, political issues, and infrastructure limitations.
Despite a current production capacity of around 27,000 megawatts—well below the estimated 40,000 megawatts needed during peak demand—Fadel said the ministry aims to provide “stable, regular, and fair” distribution across governorates.
“God willing, we believe this summer will be slightly less severe than the last,” he added.
To reduce reliance on Iranian supplies, Fadel said Iraq is pursuing a four-track strategy that includes developing domestic gas fields, investing in alternative energy sources, and importing gas from Turkmenistan. He acknowledged that long-term solutions are constrained by infrastructure gaps but pointed to progress on key projects, including a marine terminal for liquefied gas and expanded cross-border electricity connections.
Excerpts from Ziyad Ali Fadel’s interview with Al Hadath TV :
We aim for this summer to be different from last summer. In numerical terms, we cannot reach a 24-hour electricity supply across all Iraqi governorates because the required production levels exceed 40,000 megawatts, while we are currently producing around 27,000.
Therefore, we are working to ensure that electricity supply hours are stable, regular, and distributed fairly among the governorates, and that they are acceptable and better than last year, based on the plans, visions, and studies we have worked on over the past year. God willing, we believe this summer will be slightly less severe than the last.
As for the biggest challenge we will face—and I’m not afraid of it, but I am concerned—it is the issue of fuel that powers the production units, whether that fuel is imported Iranian gas, local fuel, or local gas supplied through the Ministry of Oil’s network. This issue is beyond the authority of the ministry and the minister.
All maintenance and procedures we undertake are within our jurisdiction, but imported gas is subject to contracts and political understandings and is linked to the political situation and sanctions. As we speak, we are holding a meeting with a high-level Iranian delegation to discuss extending the gas contract for the coming years and increasing the quantity to 50 million cubic meters during the upcoming summer, which is only two months away.
One of the key points that took a long time to discuss is that, as a ministry, we are committed to transferring the full amounts monthly to the TBI account. However, TBI is subject to rules and regulations due to U.S. sanctions on the Iranian gas company, and these regulations cause delays in disbursing gas payments, leading to an accumulation of funds.
According to my information, the Iranian gas company is demanding amounts exceeding $9 billion. We, as a ministry, have indeed transferred the funds to TBI, but they are frozen due to international restrictions. We clarified to the Iranian side, and to the gas company specifically, that we signed a binding contract to transfer the funds to TBI, and what happens after that is not our responsibility. It falls under international banking laws and regulations, which TBI is obligated to follow. Therefore, the delay in disbursing funds is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Electricity, and the Iraqi citizen should not bear the consequences.
We said frankly that we are not part of this political or economic conflict, and we asked the Iranian side not to use the delay in payment as a reason to cut off gas supplies. We received a preliminary commitment from them that this will not happen, and I am quoting them on this. I hope this commitment will be upheld during the upcoming summer.
In the beginning, we identified a real problem related to the reliance on imported gas to operate power stations. Therefore, we moved in four main directions as part of a strategic plan to reduce this dependence.
In the first direction, the Ministry of Electricity pursued production projects that do not rely on imported gas, such as combined cycle projects, solar energy projects, and electrical interconnection projects with neighboring countries.
In the second direction, we carried out maintenance and upgrades to the production units operating on local gas, which improved their efficiency. For example, a unit that used to produce 9,000 megawatts can now produce up to 11,000 megawatts using the same amount of gas.
In the third direction, the government, under the direction of the Prime Minister, launched a major program in coordination with the Ministry of Oil to invest in local gas.
In the fourth direction, we also turned to importing gas from Turkmenistan, and an agreement was signed in this regard. However, the main obstacle to importing gas to Iraq is infrastructure. There are two ways to transport gas. The first is through pipelines, and Iraq does not have a pipeline network connecting it to neighboring countries except for Iran. The second is through liquefied gas transported by ships, as countries like Qatar do. But this requires a marine terminal to receive liquefied gas, and such a terminal had not existed in Iraq for years. However, during this year, the project was included, the Prime Minister formed a special committee and granted approval, and the Ministry of Oil has already begun constructing the terminal.
