The Emergency Infrastructure Programme (EIP) was launched in southern Iraq by the military to stabilise the situation.

'We should be getting another 55 MW at Khor al-Zubair by 20 December and another 20 MW by the end of April at a cost of about $32 million,' says Colonel Richard Brown, the head of the power component of the EIP. 'We also have a $50 million project to install 290 MW at Nasiriyah by the end of April. And there is a $33 million project installing 40 MW at the Amara oil field by February.'

Mott MacDonaldis acting as consultant on the EIP.