Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – Iraq requires approximately eight billion standard cubic feet per day (scfd) of natural gas to achieve uninterrupted, 24-hour national electricity generation, according to Ahmed Mufti, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
In an analytical op-ed reviewed by the Iraqi News Agency (INA) on Sunday, October 18, 2026, Mufti highlighted that structural inefficiencies and energy waste cost the federal treasury roughly $10 billion annually, urging Baghdad and Erbil to launch a specialized gas licensing round and redirect industrial subsidies toward core infrastructure and upstream extraction.
The KRG energy official pointed out that state-funded fuel subsidies for heavy industries—predominantly cement and steel plants—absorb nearly $8 billion annually. While commending the federal cabinet’s revised pricing mechanism for heavy fuel oil (black oil), which reduced subsidies to sell fuel to industrial plants at $400 per ton against an international benchmark of $650, Mufti emphasized that realized fiscal savings should be channeled directly into natural gas transmission networks.
Transitioning heavy industry clusters, such as those in Sulaymaniyah’s Bazian district consuming 3,000 tons of fuel oil daily, to natural gas would significantly lower production costs, curb emissions, and free up heavy crude volumes for high-value export markets.
Mufti outlined substantial upstream potential across key underdeveloped non-associated gas assets, including Akkas in Anbar and Mansuriya and Khashm Al-Ahmar in Diyala, calling for an investment licensing round backed by robust legal, security, and sovereign payment guarantees.
Highlighting the Kurdistan Region’s foreign-investment model, he noted that output from the Khor Mor gas field surged from 350 million scfd in 2020 to 750 million scfd today, pushing aggregate regional gas production close to one billion scfd. Further development of adjacent fields—such as Chamchamal, Kurdamir, and Topkhana—could elevate regional production to between two and three billion scfd.
To bridge supply shortages, Mufti proposed an integrated “gas-to-power” framework, where gas-fired generation in the north feeds directly into the federal transmission grid, cementing economic alignment between Baghdad and Erbil.
He concluded with strategic recommendations, including the establishment of a joint federal-regional security command to protect critical energy infrastructure, the swift settlement of delayed payments to international oil and gas operators to sustain drilling campaigns, and the formal redesignation of Iraq’s Ministry of Oil as the “Ministry of Oil and Gas” to reflect the fuel’s central role in future industrial strategy.
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