French engineering group Alstom signed a 50 million euros contract to rehabilitate a gas-fired power station in Iraq, reports Reuters.

Alstom will work on two units of the Khor Al Zubair station in the southern city of Basra, adding 60 MW to the power supply. The first unit will be reconnected later this year and the second before the summer of 2013.

The company is already taking part in other projects in Iraq, including power plants in Mansouriya and Nineveh, and the Baghdad metro.

(Source: Reuters)

Iraq has signed a contract to buy 250 megawatts of electricity from UAE’s Oilfield Services.

Under the two-year deal, the company will provide two power plants docked on ships in Basra. The ships are expected to reach the port within a few weeks, and the plants will be connected to the grid by 31st July, the ministry said.

The contract is said to be based on a price of 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

Turkish ships are already docked at the port in Basra, which supply 270 MW per day to the national grid.

(Sources: Reuters, Arabian Business, Utilities-ME)

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ABB, the global power and automation technology group, has won an order from the Ministry of Electricity (MOE) in Iraq to provide a state-of-the-art power distribution management system. The solution will incorporate advanced communication technology, with monitoring and control functions, to improve the availability, performance and reliability of power supplies in the capital, Baghdad.

ABB will upgrade the existing control center with an integrated solution comprising its Network Manager SCADA DMS (supervisory control and data acquisition distribution management system) software, now a part of its Ventyx portfolio. ABB will also supply the communications equipment and RTUs (remote terminal units) to control and monitor power supplies in this densely populated area of the country.

The refurbished control centers will provide operators with a system-wide view of conditions in the distribution grid, enabling smooth operations as well as rapid detection and correction of faults. The scope of the project includes operator training.

“The refurbishment of the distribution system with advanced monitoring and control capabilities, will help improve availability and quality of electricity for consumers and support economic development in the region,” said Jens Birgersson, head of ABB’s Network Management business unit, a part of the company’s Power Systems division. “Our unique ability to facilitate the integration of operational and information technologies provides a multicomponent system from a single source, reducing both cost and complexity for our customers.”

The project is one of the several infrastructure improvement initiatives currently underway in Iraq and part of reconstruction efforts to establish a dependable power network to support economic and social development in the country.

ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 135,000 people.

(Source: ABB)

The Turkish company Çalık Enerji will open its 250 mega watt Khairat power station at the beginning of July, the first of 20 stations Iraq hopes to build around the country, reports AKnews.

The Deputy Prime Minister for Energy, Hussein al-Shahristani, made the announcement today and told AKnews that the Ministry of Oil will provide fuel for the plant, located in Karbala, southwest of Baghdad.

About the measures taken to address the electricity crisis during the summer, Shahristani said “the ministry will install 20 stations in different parts of the country, and the capacity of each one will reach up to 250 MW.”

Iraq needs at least 14,000 MW to meet the high demand for energy but currently has less than 7,000 MW.

(Source: AKnews)

AKnews reports that Iraq will stop importing electricity from neighboring countries by the summer of 2013.

Instead of depending on foreign countries for electricity, new capacity will be introduced over the next two years to the national grid, and energy production will reach 20,000 MW.

Ministry spokesman Musab al-Mudarres told AKnews the ministry currently has 20 projects to build new electricity power plants, and estimated that this has been 60-80 percent completed.

“The total electric power in Iraq will reach 9,000 MW next summer and new units to generate electricity will be added every three months to the national system”, he added.

Mudarres did not rule out exporting electricity to neighboring countries in the coming years.

The Iraqi Electricity Ministry signed a contract with the Turkish company Çalık Enerji last January to build the 1,250 MW Khairat power station.

(Source: AKnews)

Shell has announced that it has granted a $63 million contract to build an electricity generation plant for its gas capture project southern Iraq to Swiss engineer ABB Ltd.

Jasser Hanter, general director of the Shell gas project, told reporters that ABB will build two 25 megawatt power plants at Khor al Zubair.

The $17 billion Basra gas project led by Shell and Mitsubishi aims to harvest natural gas that is now flared off by Iraq’s oil production and use it to generate electricity.

(Source: Reuters)

Iraq’s cabinet has approved a $363 million (435 billion Iraqi dinar) contract on Tuesday with Egypt’s Orascom Construction to build a 1,014 MW gas-fired power plant in the northern town of Baiji [Beiji, Bayji].

The contract involves building the plant and installing six 169 MW generators which Iraq bought from Siemens in 2008.

The project is expected to be completed within 21 months, Musab al-Mudarres [Musaab al-Mudarris], a spokesman at the electricity ministry, told Reuters.

Iraqi demand for electricity peaked at 15,000 megawatts last year, but the oil-producing nation managed to supply less than half of that.

(Sources: Reuters, Aswat al-Iraq)