Kurdistan Region says household gas supplies secure despite Khor Mor shutdown

ERBIL — The Kurdistan Region’s ministries of Natural Resources and Electricity said Friday that household cooking gas supplies will not be interrupted despite the suspension of production at the Khor Mor gas field, and that efforts were under way to restore operations as quickly as possible.

To prevent shortages, the Natural Resources Ministry said it had secured the approval of Iraq’s federal Oil Ministry to meet the Region’s daily demand, with multiple tankers carrying liquefied gas due to begin arriving in cities across the Region on Friday. The ministries said there would be no household gas crisis.

On electricity, the joint statement said acting Electricity Minister Kamal Mohammed and acting Natural Resources Minister Kamaran Ali had instructed a joint team to oversee the situation and distribute the available output across the Region’s governorates and independent administrations, with control teams monitoring the grid while the disruption continues. The statement did not say how long power supply would be reduced or by how many hours.

Dana Gas announced Thursday that it had temporarily shut down primary gas production facilities at Khor Mor because of what it described as “credible security threats,” cutting supplies to power stations and reducing electricity generation across the Region by 2,500 megawatts.

The suspension came hours after air defenses intercepted drones over Erbil governorate on Wednesday night. Khor Mor, in Sulaymaniyah’s Chamchamal district, is the largest natural gas field in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, fuelling power stations that generate about 90% of the Region’s electricity. The field has been targeted by repeated rocket and drone attacks in recent years, with production typically resuming after temporary interruptions.