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Iraq plans to inject around $2.3 billion in the gas sector this year, the country’s Minister of Oil said Thursday.
Ihsan Abdul Jabbar said Iraq plans to inject $1.3 billion in Basra Gas Company’s gas projects and $1 billion in two more projects in Nasiriya and Amarah this year. The country plans to capture 2.6 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day, he said.
The Minister said Iraq is planning to change the fuel for power generation from liquid to gas and may even import gas to meet its goal. “Today we are burning 150,000 barrels per day. We need to stop that by opting for more and more gas,” he said.
Speaking at the Ministerial Dialogue on Clean Energy Transitions and Economic Resilience in the Middle East and North Africa, a conference jointly organised by International Energy Agency and Ministry of Energy and Minerals Oman, the Minister also gave an overview of the country’s clean energy plans.
Iraq plans to generate more than 12 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy out of which, about 60 percent or 7.5 GW will be through utility scale projects, he said.
“20 percent of the targeted clean energy capacity has been contracted and another 50 percent is under negotiation”, he said.
Recently, Iraq signed two major solar projects with a capacity of 2GW each with UAE-based Masdar and Power Construction Corporation of China (PowerChina), and finalised an April 2021 agreement with France’s Total for a 1GW solar power plant.
(Reporting by Sowmya Sundar; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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