Blackout hits central, southern Iraq, sources say

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) -Major oil producer Iraq began gradually restoring power on Monday, the state news agency reported citing the electricity ministry, after a power outage hit central and southern regions of the country.

Electricity ministry sources had told Reuters earlier a sudden shutdown at the Hamidiya power plant in the western province of Anbar led to a fault in the electricity transmission network. The temperature in the capital Baghdad reached a high of 47 degrees Celsius on Monday.

“An emergency power outage occurred this afternoon in the power transmission lines, causing widespread outages across the national electricity grid,” Mohammed Nehme, electricity ministry undersecretary for production affairs, said in a statement later.

“Our technical teams are currently working to address the fault and restore power. They have begun gradually restoring power, and service will be fully restored within the coming hours.”

The chair of Iraq’s parliament energy committee said in a statement that the outage did not affect the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

Many Iraqis for years have relied on privately operated generators for power as government-provided electricity was only intermittently available. Some others have turned to solar power to help cover their electricity needs.

The oil ministry could not immediately be reached for comment. The electricity ministry said it was working in “full emergency mode” to restore power, the state news agency reported.

A member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and one of the world’s leading oil producers, Iraq has struggled to provide its citizens with energy since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

In the ensuing turmoil, under-investment and mismanagement have left the national grid unable to cope with demand.

Hundreds of Iraqis protested in Baghdad in the summer of 2021, when power and water cuts gripped large parts of the country as temperatures exceeded 50 degrees Celsius.

In March, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration rescinded a waiver that had allowed Iraq to pay Iran for electricity, as part of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.

Iraq is heavily dependent on Iranian natural gas imports to generate power.

(Reporting by Muayad Kenany and Tala Ramadan; Writing by Yousef Saba and Hatem Maher; Editing by Alex Richardson and Hugh Lawson)