BAGHDAD: Iraq was hit by a power outage in its central and southern regions on Monday after a shutdown at a power plant in the western province of Anbar, electricity ministry sources said.
The sudden shutdown of the Hamidiya plant led to a fault in the electricity transmission network, the sources said.
The chair of Iraq’s parliament energy committee told Reuters the outage did not affect the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
A member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and one of the world’s leading oil producers, Iraq has struggled to provide its citizens with energy since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
In March, US President Donald Trump’s administration rescinded a waiver that had allowed Iraq to pay Iran for electricity, as part of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
