12-08-2007
Under a new accord,the Erbil 500 MW Power Station will be complete on September20

   On Tuesday, July 20 for the purpose of evaluating the state of electricity and putting a new prices on power uses ,Mr. Hoshiyar Siwaili , the electricity minister headed a large meeting  at the Divan of the ministry of electricity. At the meeting which was attended by the ministry's advisers , the minister pointed out the basic steps toward solving the power problems, and he thinks that a good step for setting up the electric production has already been taken and for the same reason , despite of the administrative and technical obstacles that facing the ministry's relations with Baghdad ,the ministry was enough cooperative and supportive with the private sector,.Any how, the result of this production will be seen by the beginning of the next new year,specially following the signatories of the contracts for purchasing the power unit(2,9c for per Khr)and this price is comparably less than any other Iraqi areas' prices.
   Regarding the issue of delaying the Erbil 500MW for a period of time ,Mr.Sewaili says: The Erbil 500MW should start to produce power on September20,and any delaying of the project following that deadline,the ministry of electricity will fine the company that supervises the station.About providing fuel to operate the stations, he said that the ministry could overcome this issue at last ,in spite of the technical problems and the problem of convincing central government to provide us the natural gas from the oil fields,as well.
   The ministry of electricity was able to overcome this problem and a meeting would be held with the company that takes a task of providing gas for both Erbil & Taq-Taq stations.One of this year's achievements of the ministry of electricity is providing 200MW from Federal Power Net. It was for that reason ,this year the Dukan and Derbandikhan water levels, instead of falling, are risen for 3m high if compared to the last year during which the Baghdad government provided only 50MW for Kurdistan.And in the meantime,this step accompanied by constructing and rehabilitating of 27 central power stations..
   In a part of the meeting concerning the strategic power projects,the minister of electricity says:the signing of the all of the three contracts of Erbil and Taq-taq stations and providing gas for them are considered as three huge strategic projects.In other side,for solving the whole issues of transmission and distribution ,the ministry of electricity will sign a huge project contract for installing and rehabilitating of 27 big power stations.Obviously,these steps need great time and serious works,because Kurdistan now needs 1500MW and the transmission and distribution sectors need dozens of different projects.At the end of the meeting, the works and activities of the ministry of electricity were appreciated by the ministry's advisers and they showed their support for ministry to increase the price of electricity step by step and to put a symbolic price from a beginning.