Iraqi Official Casts Doubt on Deals With GE, Siemens
Multibillion-dollar energy deals that both Siemens and General Electric (GE) signed with the Iraqi government last year may not come to fruition, according to the country’s electricity minister.
The Financial Times on February 10 reported that Luay Al-Khatteeb, who took his post late last year after the deals were brokered, told the newspaper, “I don’t have financial allocations or the processes available at hand, it doesn’t allow me to cherry-pick the right consultancies to deal with these multibillion-dollar deals. The bureaucracy that I inherited is . . . illogical.”
GE in October 2018 agreed to a $ 15 billion deal to provide 14 GW of power generation projects to Iraq, including 1.5 GW as early as this summer. The agreement, which was called “principles of co-operation” and is not binding, came after the Trump administration reportedly told Iraqi officials that diplomatic relations with the U.S. would be threatened if Iraq pursued that deal with Munich, Germany-based Siemens, instead of Boston, Massachusetts-based GE.…