CITIC Construction won the bid last year for Al-Khairat thermal power Power Plant in Iraq, valued at $2.85 billion
More than US$5 billion is earmarked for construction
in two phases of Al Khairat heavy oil power plant in Karbala province.
The plant will generate 3,200 MW provided by 8 power generating units
each producing 400 MW. The Chinese company CITIC Construction won the
contract. The company had previously built the 840 MW Maisan gas power plant in Al Amarah in southern Iraq. The plant is due to be fully operational at the beginning of this year.
In another big project the Chinese energy giant Sinopec is
partnering with Iraq’s state-owned Midland Oil company to develop the Mansuriya
gas field northeast of the capital Baghdad. The field is expected to
generate 300 million cubic feet of gas per day which will be used to
feed power stations in the capital Baghdad and in Diyala Province.
Iraqis have been plagued by power shortages for nearly two decades,
ever since the 2003 US-led invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The
country suffered through its hottest summer
on record in 2020 and last year was little better with temperatures
hovering at 50 degrees Celsius. The misery of ordinary Iraqis was
compounded by repeated outages leaving millions without electricity and air conditioning.
As climate change inexorably drives up the temperature Iraq urgently
needs to resolve its energy crisis. The oil-rich country is currently
producing approximately 18 gigawatts, well short of the 28 gigawatts it
requires under normal conditions. The government of Prime Minister
Mustafa al-Kadhimi was pushing for nuclear power plants
with an ambitious scheme to build 8 reactors at a cost of US$40 billion
to resolve the crisis. Exploratory talks with Russia’s Rosatom Corp.
were carried out last year and an MOU signed. The head of the Iraqi
Radioactive Sources Regulatory Authority said it was also considering
South Korea’s Kepco as a potential partner (though the company when
contacted by Al Jazeera said no one from the authority had been in touch
nor had the company been asked to work on any projects.)
And as the analyst Omar al-Nidawi points out building nuclear reactors
in Iraq is something of a pipe-dream. He cites four factors that
mitigate against the nuclear option. First he notes the cost and the
unlikelihood of foreign investors getting involved; next geopolitical
realities: neither Israel or the Gulf states would be happy in the
least, given Iran’s heavy influence in Iraq and their already great
anxiety about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions; then the fact that simply
adding more capacity doesn’t deal with transmission and distribution
issues that see more than half of the energy produced go missing; and
finally he raises Iraq’s lack of technological capabilities and security
safeguards.
Al-Nidawi concludes:
Nuclear power works well for a lot of countries, but Iraq is not
one of them, at least not yet. The last thing Iraq’s electricity sector
needs is to waste precious resources and time on pointless studies and
consultants, and worst of all, on the kickbacks and corruption that have
become the hallmark of mega government deals.
The Chinese with their commitment to build the heavy oil Al Khairat
plant and the Mansuriya gas facilities clearly agree with that analysis.
Avoiding the nuclear option, they have moved adeptly to capitalise on
the opportunity the Iraqi energy crisis has created. As the Financial Times writes:
Beijing’s efforts to foster deeper economic ties with Iraq,
Opec’s second-largest oil producer, coincides with a growing perception
among Arab leaders that the US is disengaging from the Middle East.
And with Washington continuing its MENA withdrawal there will be those who reflect on the estimated US$2 trillion
spent on the Iraq war and its aftermath - to say nothing of the
devastating human costs - and see a bitter irony. China is the
beneficiary of America’s grand Iraq folly.