Sulaymaniyah says gas stocks will last a month after Khor Mor attack

SULAYMANIYAH — Sulaymaniyah has enough household gas in storage to last more than a month, the district administration said Monday, after an attack on the Khor Mor gas field sent many residents to filling stations for gas.

Even if no gas arrived for another month, the administration would keep delivering it to homes every day, Sulaymaniyah’s qaymaqam, or district administrator, Fazil Omar told 964media. Its stores held a good supply of gas, he said.

Omar said supplies would not fall and the price would not change, and that committees were constantly monitoring the situation.

Gas distribution trucks drove through Sulaymaniyah’s neighborhoods and side streets on Monday morning to supply homes. The district administration said there was no need for fear or long queues.

At filling stations, commercial gas, sold outside the government’s subsidized supply, cost residents 500 dinars (about 30 cents at the street rate) a liter on Monday, 964media found. The price had been due to be set at 450 dinars.

In Erbil, Governor Omed Khoshnaw said in a statement that there was no problem with household gas and that residents had no cause for worry. Enough stored gas was available, the statement said, though the attack would affect electricity generation.

The attack late Sunday hit Khor Mor’s loading depot for liquefied petroleum gas, the household gas used for cooking and heating, which loads 1,500 metric tons a day. It also halted the gas that feeds the Region’s power stations, knocking nearly 3,000 megawatts off the grid, and Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi ordered a joint investigation. No group has claimed responsibility.

Dana Gas, the field’s UAE-based operator, kept production suspended Monday to assess the damage, and the power loss had eased to about 1,000 megawatts, 964media found. When Khor Mor was shut in July, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s ministries of Natural Resources and Electricity said household gas supplies would not be interrupted, after the federal Oil Ministry agreed to meet the Region’s daily demand.

Khor Mor is in the Qadir Karam subdistrict of Sulaymaniyah governorate’s Chamchamal district and has been hit by repeated rocket and drone attacks.