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Bloomberg reports that Iraq has invited companies to submit bids to build a 500-megawatt electricity plant fuelled by natural gas in the eastern province of Maysan [Missan].

An electricity ministry spokesman, Mussab Serri, told Bloomberg that the contract will be awarded in March.

The four turbines that will generate the electricity in the plant will be supplied by General Electric Co. (GE) under a separate contract.

(Source: Bloomberg)

A member of Kirkuk Provincial Council has announced that there new power plants will soon be installed in the province.

Fuad Hussein said the decision was made after the deputy electricity minister met the Council.

An Iranian company will install two 196MW plants in Dubiz district, while a South Korean company will install the other 293MW plant in Taza district. The total cost of the is estimated at $160 millio.

(Source: AKnews)

Bloomberg reports that Iraq will award seven major electricity generation contracts within the next 2 weeks as part of a three-year plan to expand power capacity.

Kosay Sattar, the Electricity Ministry's director general of planning, said companies from Iran, Europe, Egypt and South Korea are bidding for $3 billion of orders to build 7,000 megawatts of capacity.

The ministry has already signed contracts with General Electric Co. (GE) and Siemens for the equipment needed to produce the plants.

The country will invest about $15 billion by 2015 to increase capacity by 20,000 megawatts to about 27,000 megawatts.

Contracts have already been signed for the remainder of the expansion, which includes 13,000 megawatts of gas-fired plants and 7,000 megawatts of thermal power plants, he said. The government is financing the project without borrowing, according to Sattar.

(Source: Bloomberg)

A delegation from the Iranian Farast Group visited the Basra Investment Commission (BIC) and met its chairman, Khalaf Al-Badran.

They discussed the possibility of obtaining investment opportunities in various sectors, including housing and electricity.

The representative of the group, Ridha Mudhahari, said that his group includes 78 foreign and local specialized companies and that they have executed projects in a variety of countries.

Al-Badran explained to the delegation the duties of BIC and the facilities it provides to the investor, and said that there were many investment opportunities in the housing sector ready for investment.

(Source: Basra Investment Commission)

By Gavin Jones, Director of Iraq Business News, and Partner at consultancy firm Upper Quartile. This article was originally published on the Emerging Economics blog. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

It is very difficult with a market like Iraq to separate current issues, past progress and likely consequences. Since mid-2009 there has been significant achievement and progress, a sustained period of calm which now, sadly, is turning into what will probably be a very violent period as the actions and indecisions running up to the last election start to be resolved.

Let us take a quick look back at what has been achieved by the Iraqi Government:

• Two licence rounds that were very much more transparent than most in Western countries;
• Production has increased from about 2 million barrels of oil a day in 2009 to about 3 million today and is increasing rapidly;
• 14 IOC’s (International Oil Companies) and hundreds of service companies operating in Iraq;
• $43 billion in foreign investment during 2010 with numbers showing about twice that expected in 2011.
• The Central Bank of Iraq has a surplus of $50 billion

The contracts being awarded are massive, but it is not clear to me that many companies are making much in the way of profits in the country because the operating costs are so high. If companies cannot generate earnings commensurate with the risk, they will leave – especially with the price of oil rising quickly.

Egypt's foreign minister, Karmel Amro [Mohamed Kamel Amr], will lead a delegation of power companies to Iraq to discuss the formation of an Iraqi-Egyptian company to rebuild Iraq's power grid.

AKnews reports that the the delegation will visit Baghdad in the last week of January.

Hassan Najem, representing a coalition of Egyptian power companies, said that another delegation will visit Iraq on Tuesday to register a number of Egyptian companies with the Iraqi government. This will allow them to sign electricity infrastructure projects Baghdad is putting out to tender.

(Source: AKnews)

Iraq's National Investment Commission (NIC) has released a 3,100-donum (775 hectare) site for development.

The Al-Bathaa land starts north of the Euphrates river and ends south of the old Ur railway line; to the west the land is adjacent to the Bathaa district while close to the center of Thi Qar Province on the east.

The Nasiriyah - Bathaa electricity line and pure water line goes transversally through the land which is also divided by Baghdad - Basra high way.

To the east of the land there is a fuel station, rest house and a restaurant.

There is an irrigation pump of 145 horse-power capacity.

The southern side of the land is 8-10 Km from the Ziggurat of Ur (pictured).

Possible uses include:

• Tourism
• Housing
• Agricultural
• Industrial
• Services projects (Hospitals, Universities .... etc)

(Source: NIC)

Reuters reports that Iraq has signed a $235-million electricity deal with a subsidiary of Turkey's Enka Insaat to install a 500-megawatt power plant in the Al-Najibiya district of Basra.

The company will install four General Electric (GE) gas units, each with a capacity of 125 megawatts, within the next 16 months, said electricity minister Karim Aftan.

The green-field project will by financed by the local government of Basra.

(Source: Reuters)

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (pictured) has backed off threats to fire ministers boycotting cabinet, and has instead named temporary replacements, according to AFP.

Maliki's spokesman, Ali Mussawi, said, "we cannot allow the government's work to stop. Their absence gave us two choices -- either fire them or consider them on leave. The cabinet voted that they were considered to be on extended leave".

Their portfolios were temporarily handed to other sitting ministers:

• Deputy Prime Minister responsible for energy, Hussein al-Shahristani, takes over the electricity ministry;
• Planning Minister Ali al-Shukri [Ali Yousif al-Shakari] takes over finance;
• Trade Minister Khayrullah Babakir Mohammed [Kheer Allah Babakir] was handed the industry portfolio;
• Higher Education Minister Ali al-Adeeb [Ali Muhammad al-Adib] takes over education;
• Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Safaldin al-Safi [Safa al-Din al-Safi] is charged with Provincial Affairs.

(Source: AFP)

Another year in Iraq, another slew of tragic suicide bombings and jarring political crises. On the other hand, locals welcomed what economic progress they saw as well as the chance to become masters of their own political destiny, post-US-withdrawal, according to this article from NIQASH.

Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

The two biggest events of the year in Iraq seem to have occurred at opposite ends of 2011. At the beginning of the year popular protests took place around the country. They began in Baghdad’s own Tahrir Square and spread to other Iraqi cities.

In Iraq’s version of the Arab spring style protests, Iraqis made it clear that they were angry about high unemployment, government corruption and human rights abuses; their demands also included better rationing and no more interruptions to electricity supply. Protests resulted in a number of deadly clashes between protestors and state forces. But the biggest anti-government campaigns resulted in the removal of the governors of Basra and Kut from their jobs.

Reacting to the demonstrations, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki then established his 100 Day deadline which would expire June 7. During those hundred days ministers and state governors were to outline a plan for improvement or lose their jobs. At the time, politicians argued about what the deadline was really for and what would be achieved. And it seemed the results were uncertain. However looking backwards, from this end of 2011, one would say that, in effect, the 100 Day plan achieved very little.

Iraq’s 2011 was also marked by the kind of political conflict that reflected the country’s own troubled internal realities. Several important ministries were without ministers – these included the ministries of defence and internal affairs – and as the year progressed, and internal schisms deepened, the positions became even harder to fill. Simply put, nobody could agree on anything.

And this was not just about disagreements between the various political blocs. In 2011 there were also plenty of disagreements inside Iraq’s political parties. In March, a handful of MPs from the main opposition bloc, Iraqiya led by former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayed Allawi, left that party. They formed a new group they called the White Iraqiya bloc; they currently have ten MPs.