Shafaq News – Baghdad
Iran has resumed gas supplies at a rate of five million cubic meters per day following maintenance work, Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity said on Sunday.
Ministry Spokesperson, Ahmed Mousa, said in a statement that generation units affected by the gas shortage at the Bismayah and Al-Mansouriyah power plants in Baghdad have been brought back online.
The announcement comes days after the Khor Mor field in Al-Sulaymaniyah was struck, cutting gas supplies to power plants in the Kurdistan Region and causing the loss of nearly 80 percent of its generation capacity.
Earlier today, The Kurdish Ministry of Electricity said power had fully stabilized across the Region after a four-day outage triggered by a drone strike that halted gas flows from the Khor Mor field.
Mousa added that the return of Iranian gas supplies aligned with the completion of repairs at the Khor Mor field and the restart of operations, which helped provide the national grid with roughly 700 megawatts through purchased power from investment stations in the Region.
Iraq faces a deepening energy crisis due to US restrictions on importing Iranian gas, creating a major challenge to securing natural-gas supplies essential for operating power plants. Iraq imports about 50 million cubic feet of Iranian gas—equivalent to two-thirds of Iran’s gas-based power output—according to government spokesperson Basim Al-Awadi.
Read more: American praise for Iraq’s efforts to end Iranian gas dependence
The latest US sanctions waiver granted under former President Joe Biden expired on March 7 after 120 days. According to the Eco Iraq Observatory, Iraq needs around 50,000 megawatts, while it currently produces about 28,000 megawatts, based on official figures.