Speaking to ILNA Arash Kordi touched upon the program for increasing electricity export to Iraq and noted that currently electricity export to Iraq continues based on the five-year contract between the two states.

On increasing exports to Iraq, he said that Iran is ready to increase the amount of electricity export to Iraq if the country is interested and there is no problem for Iranian side.

Kordi reiterated that Iran has required infrastructures for increasing exports to Iraq, adding that Iran still seeks ways to get its money from Iraq for its electricity exports. He reiterated that due to sanctions, Iraq has problem in paying its debt to Iran and settling the account but Iran worked has hard to stop rise of the amount of the debts through cooperation with Central Bank and government bodies.

He reiterated that Iran seeks export of electricity as this policy is on the agenda, adding that the total amount of its electricity export based on its agreements is between 1000 to 1500 megawatts and it can increase it to 2000 to 2100 megawatts.

Meanwhile on the sidelines of the 22nd Electricity Industry Exhibition, the CEO of Thermal Power Plants Holding Company Mr. Abdolrasul Pishahang said that the company has increased 4400 megawatts more to the national electricity production capacity and it has also improved the new units by 1035 megawatts, noting that therefore 5500 megawatts of electricity has been added to the production capacity, and with production of renewable energy, this capacity reached 6,000 megawatts.

He noted that the country has set 4 records in the past year in the electricity industry, adding that the first record was the increasing the readiness of power plants by 98% through repairing and 94,000 megawatts has been added to the capacity.

Pishahang went on to say that the company could install and launch a unit in just 8 months while in the past the unit was installed and launched normally in 36 to 40 months.

He said that some 132 power plants and power plants units are in the country and ownership of 68% of them is in the hands of the private sector while the government owns the remaining 32%.

Pishahang then pointed to developing new power plants and improving the existing power plants, adding that the company has planned to add 3025 megawatts of electricity to the grid. He reiterated that the second fuel of 14 power plants out of 132 is fuel oil and the remaining is gas oil, it means only 10% can use fuel oil and other ones are unable to use this fuel.

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Speaking to ILNA, Alireza Kolahi talked about the condition of electricity and equipment exports and said that export of electrical energy is of the state contracts that it has its own issues and currently the private sector is not present in it due to some concerns of the energy ministry but exports of technical and engineering services and goods also have its own challenges.

He went on to say that export of equipment is carried out on three bases of business to consumer, business to business or business to government. He added that in the field of electricity, the sales are 90 percent carried out in the business to government basis and the remaining is done in business to business.

Kolahi also noted that currently good political relations and lobbies of the governments of some neighboring states that they themselves own companies are very stronger than Iran’s government.  He said for example Turkey’s government itself is involved in big projects and of course this method has recently begun in Iran, especially in some target markets Iranian exporters have had good support of embassies.

He also termed banking problem a challenge ahead of exports and said projects need guarantee letters and transfer of money and currently due to sanctions and lack of connection to the FATF, it has become a difficult and expensive job for Iranians. He noted for example in the project in Iraq, Iranian companies were forced to deal in Iraq’s national currency due to sanctions and therefore the companies suffered 10 percent loss due to the difference between the official and free rates.

Kolahi also said although some problems in Iraq and Afghanistan were to some extent resolved but in some countries like Kazakhstan due to lack of banking connection, Iranians were eliminated from big projects.

He went on to say that Iran could export millions of dollars of wire but it is currently barely around $100m, adding that big international companies are not ready to cooperate with Iran.

He admitted that Iranian wire and cable manufacturers export their products under the name of other countries like Turkey and they even have to pay the custom tariff of Turkey in order to export the products under the name of Turkey and this hurts the trade.

He also said political issues have put a brake on Iran’s exports to Oman, adding that talks are underway for exports to Qatar and Kuwait.

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