Iran’s gas and electricity supply to Iraq has been halted
The Iraqi Ministry of Electricity says the Islamic Republic has stopped supplying electricity and gas to the country due to cold weather
This statement, published on the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity’s website, adds that the halt in Iranian gas exports to the country has rendered four thousand megawatts of the country’s power plant capacity unusable
Iran exports electricity and gas to Iraq, but in the summer, due to a severe electricity shortage, it is unable to export to Iraq, and in the winter, due to a gas shortage, it both stops gas exports to Iraq and faces severe limitations in supplying gas to its own power plants, leading to a reduction in the country’s electricity production
Iraq uses imported gas from Iran to fuel its power plants
In recent years, officials of the Islamic Republic have claimed that the reason for halting electricity and gas exports to Iraq in certain months is Iraq’s accumulated debt to Iran due to U.S. sanctions. However, this summer, the United States issued a license to use the blocked assets from Iran’s electricity and gas exports to Iraq for importing non-sanctioned goods from third countries