Iraq Electric Ministry wants more funds

BAGHDAD, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- Iraq's Electricity Ministry is asking Baghdad to give it another $2.6 billion this year to repair and build new power stations.

"Baghdad is getting only 1,000 megawatts," Karim Wahid Hasan told a news conference in Baghdad, "instead of the 2,500 megawatts it needs as its power stations are not producing electricity because the eight oil and gas pipelines that supply them have been destroyed."

Wahid said the country is producing less than half of the 9,500 megawatts Iraqis need, the news service of the U.N. Humanitarian Office reports, largely because of regular attacks and other outages.

"We have asked the government to allocate $4 billion in the 2008 budget to our ministry to rebuild the power network, instead of $1.4 billion," he said.

An assessment of attacks between March 2003 and Nov. 17, 2007, made for United Press International by an expert in threats and vulnerabilities to the energy sector worldwide showed at least 1,211 workers in Iraq's power sector have been targeted. There have been 651 attacks on distribution and transmission lines and towers, 66 attacks on thermal power stations, five on hydroelectric power stations and 13 on power substations.

Iraq's oil sector faces similar sabotage and threats, which is causing a lack of supply of fuel for the power plants, which can't produce the electricity needed to run refineries or oil processing.