PM urges alternative solutions amid Iranian gas shortage crisis
Shafaq News / Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani called for alternative solutions to address the Iranian gas shortage in an emergency meeting held on Monday.
A statement from the Prime Minister's office indicated that al-Sudani's meetings aimed to monitor the current status of electricity production and devise urgent solutions to the crisis in the national grid supply.
The Prime Minister presided over a meeting in the evening on Monday, which included senior officials from the Ministries of Electricity and Petroleum, as well as several advisors.
The statement added that the meeting reviewed the measures taken to find alternative and rapid solutions to cope with the crisis of the imported Iranian gas shortage. The Prime Minister emphasized that the current government has identified the real causes of the electricity crisis since assuming responsibility and has worked on implementing solutions at three levels: immediate, medium-term, and long-term.
The immediate solutions involved completing maintenance projects, finalizing power stations, activating cooling systems, and implementing projects to alleviate bottlenecks in electricity distribution.
He further explained that the government's measures resulted in achieving electricity production of 26,000 megawatts, which is the highest production level in the country's history. However, the stability of this production was contingent upon the continuity of Iranian gas supply.
He affirmed that US sanctions and non-compliance with the agreed-upon mechanism for paying gas dues since 2018 have led to a reduction of Iranian gas supplies by more than half, negatively affecting the national production system.
Al-Sudani stressed that the government is proceeding with its medium-term plans, which include implementing contracts with Total company, as well as the licenses of the fifth round that will contribute to finding alternatives to the imported gas. He directed the authorities to work on achieving alternative and rapid solutions, as well as exploring the provision of free or subsidized fuel to private generators, while continuing efforts to import gas from Turkmenistan and Qatar.
Additionally, the Ministry of Petroleum was instructed to expedite the remaining licenses from the fifth round and collaborate with international companies to develop energy fields., emphasizing the importance of the Ministry of Electricity's swift investment in power generation and production stations, as well as urgent action on solar energy generation projects, according to the statement.
