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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
Iraqi electric power consumption increased by a factor of
fourteen in the twenty-year period between 1968 and 1988, and in
the late 1980s it was expected to double every four to five
years. Ongoing rural electrification contributed to increased
demand; about 7,000 villages throughout the nation were provided
electricity in the same twenty-year period. The destruction in
1980 of power-generating facilities near the Iran-Iraq border
interrupted only temporarily the rapid growth in production and
consumption. In 1981 the government awarded US$2 billion in
contracts to foreign construction companies that were building
hydroelectric and thermal generating plants as well as
transmission facilities. By 1983 the production and consumption
of electricity had recovered to the prewar levels of 15.6 billion
kwh (kilowatt hours) and 11.7 billion kwh, respectively. As
previously commissioned projects continued to come onstream,
Iraq's generating capacity was expected to exceed 6,000 megawatts
by 1986. In December 1987, following the completion of power
lines designed to carry 400 million kwh of power to Turkey, Iraq
became the first country in the Middle East to export electric
power. Iraq was expected to earn US$15 million annually from this
arrangement. Long-range plans entailed exporting an additional 3
billion kwh to Turkey and eventually providing Kuwait with
electricity.
Iraq's plans to develop a nuclear generating capacity were
set back by Israel's June 1981 bombing of the Osiraq (OsirisIraq ) reactor, then under construction
(see The Search for Nuclear Technology
, ch. 5). In 1988 French, Italian, and Soviet
technicians were exploring the feasibility of rebuilding the
reactor at a different site. Saudi Arabia had promised to provide
financing, and Brazil and Portugal reportedly had agreed to
supply uranium.
Data as of May 1988
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