TEHRAN - Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has assigned a working group to make necessary coordination to resolve technical problems of Iraqi power plants that work with Iranian gas.
Khadhimi headed a meeting of high ranking Iraqi officials on energy and was briefed on the potential situation of Iraq’s electricity in the next six months with regard to production, transfer and distribution of energy as well as protection of power plants.
Kadhimi also ordered the working group to visit Iran and remove obstacles in the way of outfitting Iraqi power plants with Iranian gas.
Earlier, Iraq’s Energy Minister Adel Karim said his country has failed to reach an agreement with the Persian Gulf Arab states on gas imports and, therefore, would need Iranian gas for the next years to come.
He told an Iraqi television channel that connecting Iraq’s electricity grid to the Persian Gulf countries was too high for Baghdad.
Adel Karim noted that Iraq did not agree to imports from the Persian Gulf countries and that Iranian gas was way more suitable for Iraq and its price was also reasonable.
The Iraqi Energy minister also referred to agreements with Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but said Iraq had not yet reached an agreement with them, especially the Arab countries, on energy prices and tariffs.
Meanwhile, in mid-March, a spokesman for the Iraqi Energy Ministry announced that three ministers at the head of three Iraqi delegations would visit Iran to request Tehran to resume gas injection to the Iraqi energy network. Most power plants of Iraq rely on Iranian gas and energy.
Iraq relies on Iranian gas for a significant part of its electricity generation needs in thermal power plants. The country also imports electricity from Iran to respond to a growing demand for power, especially during hot summers.
Iran decided to slash the flow of gas to Iraq in late 2020 after officials in the state-run NIGC said the Arab country was in more than $5 billion worth of arrears on its energy imports bill. The supply was cut for a period last summer after Iraqi officials failed to pay the arrears.
That comes as the Iraqi Electricity Ministry has vowed it would do its utmost to prevent power cuts over the upcoming summer.
Iraqi authorities have repeatedly stated that it would take years for the country to wean itself off the Iranian energy imports.
Iraq has used sanction waivers issued by the United States to be able to import Iranian energy in recent years.

Iran Annual Exports to
Iraq Hit $9bn

At the end of the year 1400 in the Iranian calendar, the exports to Iraq increased by 20% compared to the year before (1399) and increased to $ 9 billion.
Iraq was the second largest destination for Iranian exports in 1400 (March 21, 2021-2022).
The figures released by the Iranian customs administration showed that last year, about 18.3% of Iran’s total exports were to Iraq.
According to studies on the first 11-month exports of Iran to Iraq, Iraq’s share in Iran’s total value and weight of exports were 25 percent and 19 percent.
The total weight of Iran’s exports was 112, 658 million tons while the total value of Iran’s exports was $ 43.517 billion.
Last year, Iran imported 2.2 million tons of goods worth more than $ 1 billion from Iraq.