Iraq’s Electricity Ministry has signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build a 1,250MW power plant at Al-Khayrat and is set to sign similar agreements for four other projects.

Turkey’s Calik Enerji has been selected to construct the natural gas-fired project at Al-Khyrat located in Karbala province. The power plant will comprise 10 GE turbines of 125MW capacity each. The EPC contract was signed last week.

At MEED’s Iraq Utilities 2010 conference in Istanbul, Turkey, on 14 December, Adil Mahdi, an adviser in the Electricity Ministry, said that several other contracts are set to follow.

An EPC contract for a 500MW power project at Qudas in Baghdad province is expected to be signed soon. Calik Enerji and another Turkish company Eastern Lights Energy are competing for the contract. The Qudas project will comprise four 125MW turbines.

Germany’s Siemens is expected to sign EPC agreements with the ministry to build a 1,300MW project at Al-Roumila in Basra province.

In addition, Siemens is set to be awarded contracts to build three gas-fired facilities in Kirkuk amounting to 1,300MW. Two of the projects will comprise two 125MW units, while the final one will have one 125MW unit. Siemens signed a contract for the supply of the turbines for the Al-Roumila and Kirkuk projects previously.