Fuel shortage halts 138 private generators in Kirkuk, official says

KIRKUK, Iraq — A fuel shortage has forced 138 private generators in Kirkuk to shut down, the head of the city's Private Generators Union, Tamer al-Ishaki, said. He warned that shortages could deepen as diesel prices rise and allocations fall short of demand. Al-Ishaki said the current fuel allocation covers only around 240 hours of operation per month, leaving generators needing an additional 70 hours to complete a full month. With no government allocations available, generator owners have been forced to buy gas oil on the open market, where the price of a 200-liter barrel jumped from 160,000 to 230,000 dinars within two days. He projected the price could climb to 300,000 dinars in the coming days. Kirkuk has 1,005 operating private generators, 138 of which have no fuel reserves at all, according to al-Ishaki. He said no allocation decision has been issued between the local administration and the oil products department, and that available fuel is being directed to buyers in Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Baghdad. In the city's Shahidlar neighborhood, hundreds of residents blocked a road to protest power outages and the shutdown of a generator, demanding repairs to the national electricity grid and the resumption of generator operations.