ENKA entered into a consortium agreement with General Electric (GE) on January 3rd 2017, to undertake works on the Samawa Combined Cycle Power Plant project which was awarded to GE by the Ministry of Electricity of Iraq under a contract dated February 5th 2017.
The contract, which was awarded on an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) basis, includes design works, manufacturing, deliveries to site, construction and assembly works, operation, commissioning, start up and testing. The gas turbines and generators and their off-base auxiliaries, which were previously acquired by the employer, are to be installed and commissioned by the GE-ENKA consortium in simple cycle mode and then converted to combined cycle through the addition of a steam tail and associated equipment. The power plant has a 4x4x1 configuration and will be capable of using three different fuels, with natural gas as the primary fuel and light distilled oil and heavy fuel oil as back-up fuels. The fuel storage and treatment facilities for the liquid fuels are also included in the scope of the work. The gross output at ISO conditions will be 750 MW.
The four 9E gas turbine and generator sets (4X125 MW) and auxiliaries were purchased by the employer from General Electric under the “Mega Deal” project in December 2008. These are to be installed by the consortium as free issued equipment.
In late 2018, the work was divided into two phases to overcome financing and budget challenges.
Phase 1 broadly envisages the completion of the simple cycle plant, including the 132 kV air insulated switchyard (AIS) and 400 kV gas insulated switchyard (GIS) together with common balance of plant of a size and capacity to accommodate the combined cycle operation.