Baghdad has reached an agreement with Tehran to ensure its gas imports this summer, often suspended by the influential Iranian ally, assured an Iraqi minister, on condition that the 1.6 billion dollars in arrears demanded by Iran.

During the four summer months, Iraq should receive 50 million cubic meters per day from neighboring Iran, assured the Minister of Electricity, Adel Karim, in an interview Wednesday evening on Iraqi public television.

Faced with an energy shortage, Iraq, endowed with immense hydrocarbon reserves, has turned to Iran, which supplies it with a third of its gas consumption. To force Baghdad to pay its arrears, Tehran regularly suspends these supplies.

“We have agreed on the supply (of gas) in a satisfactory quantity. We agreed on 50 million cubic meters during the four summer months”, indicated the minister.

In winter, Iraq will receive between 10 and 20 million cubic meters per day, he said.

“They agreed to supply us, but they have conditions. They claim (...) 1.6 billion dollars", he acknowledged, specifying that the payment must be made "within a month, by the beginning of June".

These are 2020 arrears never settled to date due to US sanctions against Iran which are significantly delaying payments.

Because of these sanctions, Baghdad cannot pay for its imports in cash: the money must be used by Tehran to buy goods from the agro-food or pharmaceutical sectors and the process is always very arduous.

Mr. Karim assured that gas imports have currently resumed, up to 38 million cubic meters per day.

“In my humble opinion, we will depend on Iranian gas for the next five to ten years,” he acknowledged. Changing the situation will depend on the search for “necessary alternatives to electricity production”.

The file is ultra-sensitive in a country where the high summer heat - sometimes more than 52 degrees in the shade - is accompanied by daily power cuts.

Among the alternatives envisaged by Iraq: a connection to the electricity network of Turkey which should materialize quickly to supply the metropolis of Mosul (north), according to Mr. Karim. But also ongoing negotiations with the Gulf countries, for a connection with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

And “within a few months”, Iraq could start importing liquefied gas from Qatar, said the minister again.