US Extends 90-day Waiver for Iraq : Reports
The US government has reportedly extended waivers for Iraq, allowing it to continue to import Iranian gas until June 2019, Reuters and AFP reported, quoting an anonymous State Department official. This is the third time that US has given a 90-day waiver, which is necessary if Iraq is to continue running its power plants.
Iraq announced in December 2018 that that the country could not do without Iranian gas imports, at least for two years, until its domestic gas production has grown by 45% to 13.4bn m3/yr.
Wood Mackenzie told NGW that Iran exported 15.5bn m³ gas to Iraq and Turkey during 2018, just over half of which went to Turkey.
Iran started selling 7mn m3/d to Baghdad June 22, 2017, and this now tripled, but is still less than half the contractual 50mn m3/d. Iran has two agreements covering exports to Baghdad and Basra, each for 25mn m3/d, with about a third flowing in winter and two thirds in summer. Iran also exports electricity to Iraq.
According to an official report, prepared by Iran’s energy ministry and seen by NGW, Iran exported 6.324 TWh electricity during the fiscal year which ends March 20.. Of that, 78.7% went Iraq.