Top Energy StoriesIraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is extending its gas pipeline network toward the Turkish border — a project that promises to unlock gas supplies at multiple fields, increase domestic power generation, and pave the way for potential future exports. The KRG Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) signed an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract with the Iraqi Kurdish company KAR Group in December 2021, and implementation has already begun, according to three industry officials and one official at the KRG Ministry of Electricity. "The contract is done and they have started work," the Electricity Ministry official said, adding that the pipeline is supposed to be ready within 16 months. Read the full story on Iraq Oil Report. Iraq's electricity supply has been suffering severe disruptions because of natural gas shortages — a crisis that underscores the weakness of the country's energy infrastructure and its overreliance on Iran for imported fuel and power. The gas shortages have knocked out about 6,500 MW of power generation capacity in late January, according to an Electricity Ministry official. The cuts have been especially sharp in recent days due to a confluence of factors, including reduced production of both crude and associated gas at southern oil fields, cold weather that has taken gas compressors offline, pipeline maintenance, and Iranian cuts to gas and power exports due to high domestic demand. The crisis comes at a politically sensitive time for Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. In past government-formation periods, electricity shortages have helped sway public opinion against the incumbent — and Kadhimi is currently attempting to win support for a second term now that a new Parliament has been sworn in. Read the full story on Iraq Oil Report. The KRG has resumed oil imports from northeast Syria, resolving a diplomatic standoff that threatened an economic lifeline for the Kurdish-led administration in Rojava. Two oil traders and two officials from the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) confirmed that oil tanker trucks are again crossing the border, and one AANES official said that a small pipeline from Syria into Iraqi Kurdistan resumed operations on Jan. 25. Read the full story on Iraq Oil Report. Iraq exported 3.619 million barrels per day (bpd) in January nationwide, a slight decline from December, but high oil prices led to monthly revenue levels unseen in a decade. Iraq’s federal oil exports in January dipped slightly as bad weather caused loading delays at southern ports but higher international oil prices pushed revenues to $8.27 billion. As benchmark Brent crude prices averaged more than $100 per barrel in 2012, Iraq had five months of revenues that exceeded January 2022 levels but haven’t replicated it since. Read the full story on Iraq Oil Report. National NewsThe number of confirmed coronavirus cases is increasing again in Iraq as the omicron variant spreads and vaccination rates remain low, but the new strain’s milder symptoms are relieving pressure on the healthcare system and oil industry operations, as fewer cases require hospitalization, doctors and oil sector officials say. The omicron variant first emerged in Iraq in early January, and there has subsequently been a sharp rise in case numbers, in the country’s fourth wave of infections since the pandemic began nearly two years ago. Read the full story on Iraq Oil Report. Michael Knights for the Combating Terrorism Center: The Islamic State at low ebb in Iraq: the insurgent tide recedes again Incidents like the January 20, 2022, Islamic State prison break at Ghweran, Syria, or the January 21, 2022, massacre of 11 Iraqi Army soldiers in Diyala, Iraq, give the sense of another Islamic State resurgence, but a longer and more methodical survey of attack metrics shows that the Islamic State’s insurgency in Iraq is looking increasingly anemic, in contrast to the sustained resurgence it enjoyed over the course of 2019 and early 2020. Attack activities plummeted across the board in mid-2020, falling from a high of 808 Islamic State-initiated attacks in Q2 2020 to 510 during the third quarter of that year. Attack trends persisted in an erratic pattern of ups and downs for the remainder of the period surveyed in this study, averaging 330 per quarter over the remaining 17 months from July 2020 to November 2021. These national-level figures, supported in this article by an exhaustive qualitative and province-by-province breakdown, paint a picture of an insurgency that feels increasingly isolated and disconnected from the broader Sunni Arab population.
Shelly Kittleson for Al-Monitor: Iraq tightens Syria border control after massive IS jailbreak After hundreds of alleged Islamic State (IS) fighters escaped detention facilities in northeastern Syria in an attack in late January, Iraq says it has stepped up control of its western border. ... The jailbreak began with a suicide attack on the evening of Jan. 20, and fighting continued with brief lulls for over a week afterward. Combing operations continued in northeastern Syria as of early February, but hundreds of IS suspects had then reportedly left the city. Thousands of those detained in the facilities were Iraqi nationals. A source from eastern Syria had told Al-Monitor late last year that the prison attacked in late January continued to host many high-value Iraqi IS leaders, including several who had direct contact with IS' first leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Many of the tens of thousands of people held in camps in northeastern Syria, most of whom are relatives of IS fighters, are also Iraqi nationals.
Hamzeh Hadad, for Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung: Path to government formation: how violence and elite sectarianism lead to consensus governments The current discourse surrounding the results of the election has extensively covered the commonalities, but it has failed to address three emergent themes: first, the return of the debate surrounding consensus government, and how that will influence the selection of the prime minister; second, the new type of violence occurring amidst government formation, which signals a shift from indiscriminate violence to targeted political violence; third and finally, the re-sectarianization of the electoral system and the entrenchment of muhasasa (informal ethno-sectarian quota) at a time when the public has strongly rejected it. I outline each of these themes in turn, utilizing interviews, public documents, reports, and public opinion data to describe the transformations that have occurred from 2005 to 2021. I conclude by reflecting on these themes and how they impact the duration of government formation and the prime minister who will eventually be selected.
Green Finance and Development Center: Iraq was the largest beneficiary from China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2021 China’s financing and investment spread across 46 BRI countries, with 26 countries receiving investments and 37 with construction engagement. The country with the highest construction volume was Iraq, with about US$10.5 billion, followed by Serbia (about US$6.8 billion) and Indonesia (about US$2.4 billion). With the strong engagement in Iraq in 2021, Iraq moved up to the third most important partner in the BRI for energy engagement between 2013 and 2021 (the most important partner is Pakistan, followed by the Russian Federation). Iraq and China cooperate on oil (e.g., construction of the Al Khairat heavy oil power plant with a total value of about US$5 billion), gas (e.g., development of the Mansuriya gas field by Sinopec together with Iraq’s Midland Oil Company), as well as solar (e.g., a 2 GW power PV project, currently in permission stage developed and owned by power Construction Corporation of China valued at US$3.7 billion). However, with some of these projects, implementation remains to be seen, particularly where the price for the solar power project seems unusually high if no energy storage facility is included (a comparable 2.2GW solar plant completed in China’s Qinghai with 202 MWh storage was priced at US$2.2 billion).
Al-Monitor: Baghdad airport hit with rockets Baghdad International Airport was hit with at least three rockets on Friday [Jan. 28], damaging an unused commercial airliner. No one was reported hurt in the incident, which was not immediately claimed by any group, though Iran-backed militias are frequently blamed for targeting sites in Iraq used by international coalition troops that maintain a presence at the airport. Reuters said three rockets landed on the airfield, while Agence France-Presse cited an Interior Ministry source as saying six. At least one struck an unoccupied Boeing 767 that had been undergoing repairs.
Jane Arraf for the New York Times: A Black Iraqi’s sudden career in TV news: ‘They wanted to see all colors’ Randa Abd Al-Aziz was relaxing in a Baghdad cafe, making her friends laugh by reading a cosmetics pamphlet aloud in classical Arabic, the exaggeratedly formal language of speeches, official decrees — and TV anchors. Overheard by a talent scout, Ms. Abd Al-Aziz soon got a totally unexpected and life-changing offer: How would she feel about reading the news on television? Ms. Abd Al-Aziz recounted the story of her discovery as she was getting ready for a recent broadcast. She tilted her face so a makeup artist could apply the armor-like layer of foundation and eye makeup that transforms what she describes as her “baby face” into that of a sophisticated anchorwoman, one who is not just presenting the news but also making Iraqi history. Ms. Abd Al-Aziz, 25, is the first Black Iraqi employed on air at the state television’s news and information channels at least since the United States toppled Saddam Hussein almost two decades ago.
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