Despite being in low-demand season, Iraq is reeling from massive power cuts due to a sharp decline in natural gas imports from neighboring Iran. An electricity ministry spokesman this week confirmed that volumes fell from 1.4bn cfd to just 350mn cfd, leaving Iraq deprived of some 5GW of electricity generation – adding further to the country’s chronic power supply deficit (MEES, 17 July 2020). The collapse in imported volumes is said to be partly down to high domestic demand within Iran due to cold weather as well as some maintenance work on pipelines.
The ministry statement also reveals the extent of recent gas supplies from Iran. Volumes have averaged around 750mn cfd since ramping up in 2019, but evidently prior to the recent outage had nearly doubled, despite the US government’s efforts to force Iraq to explore alternatives. (CONTINUED - 136 WORDS)