The contract includes the establishment of power interconnection lines from the authority station in Kuwait to the Al-Faw station in southern Iraq, to ​​supply southern Iraq with approximately 500 megawatts of power from GCC countries via the Gulf Power Interconnection Network, including the new power interconnector lines to be built, which will take approximately 24 months to complete, with a total transmission capacity of 1,800 megawatts.
Message from the Gulf
Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary General Jassim Al-Budaiwi confirmed that the Iraq Liaison Project is one of the Council’s most important strategic projects.
Al-Budaiwi said that the GCC countries, through the electricity interconnection project with the southern grid of Iraq, “send a message to Iraq that we are from you and yours, and that we are waiting always looking forward to your safety and prosperity”.
He added, “The project will support the existing cooperation between the GCC countries and Iraq, and enable Baghdad to find sustainable alternatives to electric power, and achieve economic benefits for both parties by exporting electricity from the GCC countries to Iraq”.
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz said: “The power connection with Iraq was a dream and now it has become a reality.”
For his part, the Iraqi Minister of Electricity, Ziyad Al-Ruzij, affirmed that “the laying of the foundation stone of the Iraq-Gulf electricity interconnection project is considered as one of the important strategic projects at the level of the Arab integration in the field of electrical energy”. , and another artery that connects Iraq to its depths in the Arabian Gulf.”
For his part, the CEO of the Gulf Electrical Interconnection Authority, Ahmed Al-Ibrahim, indicated that “the start of the implementation of the electrical interconnection with the Republic of Iraq next week represents the axis of work for a period of years between the two sides, to crystallize the interconnection project between the countries of the Cooperation Council and Iraq”, explaining that “the project will supply the south of Iraq” with electrical energy, in its first phase.
The project includes the implementation of a two-circuit line from the Al-Zour secondary station, passing through the Al-Wafra station of the Gulf Electricity Interconnection Authority in Kuwait, to the Al-Faw station in southern Iraq, with a length of 322 km.
And the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity had concluded, in September of the year 2019, a framework agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council to establish two electric power transmission lines with a length of 300 km, divided into two distances, inside Iraq 80 km, and inside the State of Kuwait 220 km, on the sidelines of the Iraq Energy Forum which was then held in the capital, Baghdad, where the project , if completed, will provide Iraq with hundreds of megawatts of electrical power.
Promising opportunities
Experts and observers believe that the Gulf Arab countries’ development and revival experiences are solid and successful by international standards, and that they have advanced and accumulated expertise and capabilities in the areas of investment, particularly in the fields of infrastructure, the knowledge economy, energy in all its traditional and renewable fields, and the diversification of sources of income. It will have great positive repercussions for Iraq if its relations with these countries evolve and if their prospects are strengthened.
The director of the Iraqi Center for Strategic Studies, Dr. Ghazi Faisal Hussein, said in an interview with Sky News Arabia:
This project achieves a very important strategic and development objective, establishing the reconstruction of the industrial base in Iraq, which will contribute to the progressive reactivation of approximately 50,000 factories which have been inactive since 2003, improving the reality of the electric energy in the country, because without electricity it is not possible to develop the economic, service and agricultural reality and cannot attract investment and establish sustainable infrastructure. This link offers a golden opportunity for Iraq to deepen its economic and energy integration with its sister countries in the Arab Gulf, which leads to the development of its transformation towards the adoption of clean green energy projects, relying on the accumulated experiences of the Gulf in this context, developing its production of natural resources and diversifying its economy. Without a solid industrial and agricultural base, security and stability cannot be ensured in Iraq. Thus, this liaison agreement inaugurates a new phase of cooperation and integration between Iraq and its Gulf and its Arab environment in general, which positively reflects the strengthening of the Arab presence in Iraq and vice versa, and expands areas of common interest between the two parties.
Over the past few decades, Iraq has suffered from a huge electric power supply deficit, especially during the summer and winter seasons, when consumption and demand increase to such an extent that lead times supply to citizens are reduced to a very short time. a few hours a day.
It should be noted that the GCC Interconnection Authority, headquartered in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, was established in 2001 with the aim of connecting the power systems of the GCC countries.
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