Iraq to import Gas from Iran until 2025 amid US pressure
Iraq’s Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar said his country is planning to produce its own gas to meet domestic needs, but imports from Iran will continue for the next five years.
Iraq’s Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar said his country is planning to produce its own gas to meet domestic needs, but imports from Iran will continue for the next five years.
Iraq is under pressure from the US to make itself less dependent on Iran’s energy, but Iraqi leaders say the demand is a bar set too high given the Arab country’s state of infrastructure which is still badly battered decades after the US invasion and sanctions and economic decline.
US leaders were hoping to bring Iraq on board as Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi visited Washington last week. President Donald Trump said US companies were involved in many prospects in Iraq’s oil business.
Ahead of Kadhimi’s visit, five US firms signed agreements with the Iraqi government aimed at boosting what the White House characterized as Iraq’s energy independence from Iran.
The US Department of Energy in a statement said that Honeywell International, Baker Hughes, General Electric, Stellar Energy, and Chevron had signed commercial agreements worth as much as $8 billion with the Iraqi ministers of oil and electricity.
US energy companies have been trying to expand their involvement in the oil-rich nation. In 2018, the Trump administration reportedly warned Iraqi officials to forgo a $15 billion power generation deal with Germany’s Siemens and award it to General Electric instead.
According to Bloomberg News, senior US officials warned former Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi at the time that signing the deal with Siemens would seriously jeopardize Iraq’s relations with the United States.
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