Three Tugs, One Pilot: How Karpowership Joined Iraq's Grid

A 289-Metre Ship Guided Home

The longest vessel ever received at Khor Al-Zubair did not carry cargo. The Orka Sultan, 289 metres long and drawing 8 metres, came alongside berth 13 in August 2025, guided by marine pilot Raad Hamada Ali and walked into place by three Iraqi tugs, Wasit, Al-Wasiliya and Al-Hawra. Farhan Al-Fartousi, director general of Iraq's General Company for Ports, called it the longest ship in the port's history. Days earlier, a first vessel rated at 125 megawatts had already been guided into berth 9 at nearby Umm Qasr.

From Berth to Breaker

A joint Iraqi-Turkish team was working to complete the first vessel's connection to the national grid, Thaer Al-Salihi, who chairs the energy committee of the Basra provincial council, told the outlet Kalima on 22 August 2025. Karpowership supplies the engines and the crews that connect them; the transmission line, the permits and the dispatch order all stay with the Iraqi state, a division of labour under which a 300-megawatt ship at Khor Al-Zubair began operating on 9 September 2025, according to AFP.

A Gap Measured in Tens of Thousands of Megawatts

The scale of what these vessels address is public: Iraq's national generation stands at roughly 24,000 megawatts, against peak summer demand approaching 60,000, electricity ministry spokesman Ahmed Turki told the daily Al-Mada in August 2026. Baghdad has used this model before. In 2008 it contracted three generating ships totalling around 520 megawatts. What has changed since is the instrumentation now watching the result.

Where Basra Watches the Load

Within days of the second vessel's arrival, Iraq's electricity minister Ziad Ali Fadel announced that a new central control centre in Basra had entered full service, built with artificial intelligence tools to monitor every station in the province and shorten outages. He described a system where, in time, citizens would be able to see the actual load on their own grid. Capacity figures moved fast in the weeks that followed: Karpowership's own statement put the deal at up to 590 megawatts, the minister spoke of 650, and ministry spokesman Ahmed Moussa gave the clearest breakdown, a first phase adding 250 megawatts immediately, with 1,500 reachable once further approvals are granted.

Burning Locally Supplied Diesel

The minister added a detail that ties the vessels to the country's own resources: the two ships would run on locally supplied fuel, a step that reduces reliance on imported gas. The initial contract ran just 71 days, an unusually short first commitment, but Baghdad moved quickly to renew it, and by May 2026 the vessel was preparing to work again within days of the extension.

Iraqi pilots bring the ships in, an Iraqi control room in Basra watches what they deliver, and a signature in Baghdad decides how far the megawatts are allowed to climb. Each renewal since has added to a grid the ministry can now follow, station by station, in real time.