Bidding Starts for Iraq's 1,500-Megawatt Power Project in Anbar

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The shortlist of companies that will bid for Iraq's latest 1,500-megawatt (MW) power project has been announced by the country's electricity ministry. The $1 billion project that will be sited in the country's central province of Anbar will cover the construction of six power production units. Four of the units will be fired by gas, and two thermal units will use alternative fuel sources.

Musaab Al Mudaris from the electricity ministry said that the companies competing for the contract are Hyundai Engineering and Construction (Seoul, South Korea), Saipem SpA (OTC:SAPMY) (Milan, Italy), Metka (ATX:METKK.AT) (Athens, Greece), Gama (Ankara, Turkey) and a consortium of Calik Energy (Istanbul, Turkey) and Techint (Milan, Italy).

The ministry's tender committee will study the bids and submit a recommendation within a month. The project is scheduled for completion 33 months from the start of the construction date. The contract will be awarded to one contracting company, which will have sole responsibility for the project.

Iraq currently has about 6,500 MW available which is less than 50% of the national requirement, which peaked at around 15,000 MW in 2011. The shortfall means that power is available intermittently for a few hours each day. The situation for domestic and commercial users is exacerbated by the failure of air conditioning units when summer temperatures soar to 50 degrees Celsius. The power supply failures have caused social unrest and street demonstrations.

In 2011, the ministry launched bids for another seven power projects representing a total of 4,000 MW. With new projects in the pipeline and coming into operation, the goal is to have 9,000 MW available in July this year and 9,600 MW available in August. The target for December is 10,400 MW, and 12,330 MW by April 2013.

The ministry is budgeting to invest $27 billion in the power sector in the 2012-17 period to add 24,400 MW to the grid. Gas will fire 13,000 MW of the additional power, and 7,000 will be thermal. Conversions from simple-cycle plants to combined-cycle will add 4,000 MW, and 400 MW will come from renewables.

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