Siemens has offered to expand Iraq’s gas-fired power generating capacity by 11 GW over four years, according to the company.
Siemens Chief Executive Joe Kaeser presented the proposal to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
It could be Siemen’s biggest contract ever - worth an estimated 13 billion euros ($15 billion) - to build and refurbish power stations in Iraq that would increase the country’s generating capacity by about half in the next four years.
“We have had a series of meetings and positive feedback from the government for the development of power infrastructure in the country,” Siemens said. “Repowering Iraq is a core element in the road map but it extends far beyond that.”
Siemens’s chances for winning the order are “high,” Adel Jeryan, Iraq’s deputy electricity minister, said in an interview, adding that the government hasn’t set a price tag yet on the order. General Electric Co. is also competing for the project, he said.
The contract would come as a welcome boost for either Siemens or GE’s struggling power and gas divisions, which are suffering from a sharp slump in orders triggered by a global shift to renewable energy sources.
Kaeser is cutting thousands of jobs at the German firm as a result and GE is in the throes of a deep revamp of the once-sprawling conglomerate that includes shedding assets.
For Siemens, the Iraqi project would be bigger than one completed earlier this year in Egypt for power plants and wind farms generating a combined 16.4 gigawatts. That order worth about 10 billion euros was described as the company’s biggest-ever when it was signed in 2015.
