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Firms continue Baiji 1 and 2 power plant talks

9 May 2024

Discussions are continuing between Iraq’s Electricity Ministry and a team comprising Germany’s Siemens Energy and Egypt’s Orascom Construction for the contract to rebuild the Baiji 1 and Baiji 2 power plants in northern Iraq, both of which were damaged by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Isis).

MEED reported in 2019 that the ministry and Siemens/Orascom team had signed a contract to rebuild the two power plants.

“There are ongoing discussions and there is progress, although obviously the discussions have been proceeding at a pace that is slower than expected,” a source close to the project told MEED.

The project agreed upon at the time of the contract signing aims to restore and increase the plants’ capacities to produce 1.6GW of electricity.

Construction of the plants was expected to begin after the contracts were approved by Iraq’s Council of Ministers and a financial agreement was reached with the Finance Ministry.

Siemens Energy was to supply four new gas turbines for the plants as well as inspect and revamp six existing units.

The project is part of the electricity roadmap implementation programme that Siemens Energy signed with the Iraqi government in May 2018.

Earlier this week, it was reported that the Iraq Electricity Ministry held preliminary discussions with a Qatari company to build a greenfield power plant in Baiji with a potential capacity of 2,100MW.

The two projects are unrelated, according to the MEED source.

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Jennifer Aguinaldo

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