ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Power supplies in the Kurdistan Region are expected to return to pre-attack levels by Sunday evening, days after a drone strike on the Khor Mor gas field triggered widespread outages, said a senior official from the electricity ministry.
“Gas has reached the power stations, and now 3,100 megawatts of electricity is available. By late tonight, the rate will increase to 4,200 megawatts,” Ardalan Doski, director of the office of the electricity ministry, told Rudaw. “With this, the entire electricity situation in the Kurdistan Region will return to [the level] before the attack on Khor Mor.”
Power supplies sharply declined after Wednesday night’s attack on the Khor Mor field in Sulaimani’s Chamchamal district, which ignited a fire and cut roughly 80 percent of the Region’s own electricity production. Khor Mor is operated by Pearl Petroleum, a consortium led by Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum.
“With the increase in gas production by late tonight, the electricity situation will be completely normalized,” he added, saying neighborhoods covered by the Runaki Project already have power restored.
The KRG’s flagship Runaki - “light” in Kurdish - project aims to provide uninterrupted electricity to residents across the Region. Around four million people currently enjoy the service.
This comes after Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Masrour Barzani late Saturday announced that they have reached an agreement with Dana Gas that will restore power “in the next several hours.”
The Region’s Electricity Minister Kamal Mohammed told Rudaw on Sunday, “By tonight, the situation will be normalized, and the Runaki Project and 24-hour electricity will return as it was.”
Mohammed stressed that the field “is beneficial not only for the Kurdistan Region, but for all of Iraq.”
Earlier on Sunday, a spokesperson for Iraq’s electricity ministry told Rudaw that the Khor Mor shutdown alone caused the loss of around 1,200 megawatts in federal electricity production that normally supplies Nineveh, Kirkuk, and Salahaddin provinces.
The Kurdish minister also said the federal oil ministry sent natural gas to the Region on Saturday, contributing “50 to 60 megawatts,” adding that “although it is little, but from the moral aspect it was important.”