US engineering giant General Electric has secured orders worth a combined $1.4bn from Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity to build new power plants and to upgrade and maintain existing plants. GE says the agreements will see the addition of over 2GW of generating capacity to the Iraqi grid.

GE will build power plants at Samawa and Nasiriya – respectively 280km and 370km southeast of Baghdad – with a combined capacity of 1.5GW. Four 250MW gas turbines will be installed at each site by 2018, initially operating in combined cycle mode. (CONTINUED - 365 WORDS)