Iraqi energy officials on Sunday marked the start of work on a 1,250 megawatt power plant with Turkey's Calik Enerji as the power-starved country seeks to boost its electricity output.
The Turkish company, which won the $445.5 million contract in October, is expected to finish the project in April 2013, Sabeeh Qadu, general manager for gas projects in Iraq's Electricity Ministry told Reuters.
The plant consists of 10 gas turbines, each producing 125 MW, or 1,250 MW in total. The turbines are among 56 gas turbines the ministry purchased from General Electric in 2008, Qadu added.
"Today we are celebrating by putting in the foundation of building one of the biggest power generation plants in Iraq," Hussain al-Shahristani, the deputy prime minister for energy, told reporters at the site where the plant will be built in Khairat, 30 km south-east of Kerbala.
More than eight years after the US-led invasion, Iraq's national grid only supplies a few hours of power each day. Intermittent electricity is one of the public's top complaints.
A Turkish official said Calik Enerji had so far completed a soil survey at the site, which currently employs 100 people, including engineers and technicians. Around 60 of the 100 employees are Turkish.
Calik also won a $388.5 million contract last month to build a power plant with a total capacity of 750 MW near Mosul in northern Iraq.