Task Force 4400: Mission accomplished

By 1st Lt. Alex Young, U.S. Army, 94th Engineer Combat Battalion

In mid-August 2003, Task Force 4400 was created to increase the total capacity of Iraq's power plants back to their pre-war level (4,400 MW) in just six weeks, by September 30. In mid-August, usable capacity was about 2,900 MW, and it had been steadily declining since the fall of Baghdad in early April due to extensive looting and a lack of plant maintenance.

The Iraq Central Provisional Authority (CPA) assigned the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deploy to the various power plants around the country and to manage them until September, when engineers from Bechtel Corp. were scheduled to arrive. Last spring, Bechtel was awarded a $1.03 billion contract by the U.S. Agency for International Development to repair Iraq's power, water, telecommunications, and other infrastructure systems.

I was assigned to the Khor Al-Zubair power station, 18 miles south of Basra Airport and 12 miles north of Iraq's border with Kuwait. Khor Al-Zubair is one of three power plants in the Basra area, and I looked forward to working with and for the British Division Engineers who had been put in charge of restoring power in southern Iraq.

Last August, the three plants near Basra were capable of generating about 100 MW, but demand was close to 400 MW. The transmission network was a mess, and the local distribution network was in shambles. Under Saddam Hussein, power production had been emphasized so much that transmission and distribution were completely overlooked. In certain areas, even if power could be produced, there was nowhere to send it.

My assignment was two-fold: to coordinate the activities of the American and British engineers and the remaining Iraqi plant managers and operators, and to create a list of the parts and materials needed to get the three power stations—Khor Al-Zubair, Hartha, and Shuaiba Iraq—back to full capacity within a month and a half. I reported to British Division Engineering headquarters at nearby Nejibiyah Power Station.

To get started, my team and I visited each of the three plants to assess their condition and to draw up three lists of needed parts. Within two weeks (by the last week of August), the lists were ready. My duties also included assessing the condition of local transmission lines and reporting my findings to the Brits, who were responsible for making sure that the additional generation could be dispatched.

The next stage went just as smoothly and took just a few days. The CPA authorized funding of the parts requests, and a CPA/Bechtel team converted them into procurement orders. This process was an unfamiliar one to the Iraqi managers, because under Saddam, Baghdad dictated what parts they got and how they spent their budgets.

Within days, other weaknesses of the Iraqis became apparent to us. To their credit, Iraqi plant staff had routinely pulled off engineering "miracles" because they lacked the right parts and materials. What's more, their sole task—to produce as much power as possible on a daily basis—essentially made Western power engineering "standards" luxuries. For example, preventive maintenance was a foreign concept to the Iraqis because their preoccupation with production left them no time to plan ahead. Realizing these weaknesses, the task force added another objective: to teach plant staff how to order parts and how to plan future maintenance. The Iraqis clearly had the skills to do repair work; what they needed more than anything else were direction and training.

By the end of August, the task force's revised plan (including a training program) had been approved by the CPA. It detailed what work was to be done at each of the three power stations, and when, with such precision that a battle rhythm was created. During the first week of implementation of the revised plan, I visited Hartha and Shuaiba in the mornings and afternoons and returned to Khor Al-Zubair for meetings at night.

Oil and wires don't mix

On September 3, something happened that put the success of the overall repowering plan at risk. A major fire at Hartha destroyed hundreds of the wires that brought in the electricity needed to kick-start the plant's two boilers and turbines, shutting down the station. Hartha had a rated capacity of 400 MW and was generating 240 MW at the time, so the loss was tremendous. After the fire, the total capacity feeding Basra dropped to as low as 80 MW—far less than the 250 MW needed to provide service on a three-hours-on/three-hours-off basis under a load shedding plan.

The situation became critical as Basra's population became agitated by the lack of electricity. Surveying the damage, we found the cause of the fire to be an "accident"; it started underground in a spot where wires ended up submerged in a pool of oil that had not been drained. Getting Hartha Power Station back on-line now became the No. 1 priority for the British Division Engineers, Task Force 4400, and even the CPA.

A rough estimate put the time needed to repair the incoming power lines at four to six weeks. At a subsequent meeting with Hartha's plant manager and its electrical, mechanical, I&C (instrumentation and control), and boiler chief engineers, a commitment was made to try to stick to the task force's September 30 deadline by getting both downed units back on-line in six weeks, by the first week of October.

Over the next few weeks, the work plan was modified several times as repairs began in earnest. Hartha's staff was especially diligent, working 22 hours a day in rotating 11-hour shifts. They seemed inspired both by the plight of their people in Basra and by the task force's single-minded focus on achieving its objectives.

The next major hurdle was acquiring the needed parts and materials. Although the funding was available, often the right parts were not. Much of the destroyed equipment was old, so replacement parts either were hard to come by or were no longer manufactured because their original suppliers had gone out of business. Only a great deal of improvisation—including a program set up by the Corps to swap parts with other power plants—saved the day. Both units at Hartha were back on-line by the first week of October.

No power lines, no power

The fire, which underscored Hartha's reliance on imported power during startup, also emphasized both the importance and sorry state of Iraq's transmission infrastructure. Between April and September of last year, almost every 400-kV and 132-kV line in southern Iraq was damaged by looters in search of copper. The subsequent hiring of a private security force and efforts by coalition forces to protect the lines—including aerial patrols by British forces instructed to shoot looters on sight—restored some measure of order, but isolated incidents of vandalism still occur.

Another one of my jobs working under British Division Engineers last summer was a crucial one: assessing damage to southern Iraq's transmission system. I spent two days a week last September flying low to create a spreadsheet of downed pylons and lines. Once the database was populated, it was decided to cannibalize backup 400-kV lines to repair primaries, because pylons were in short supply. With the help of another team dedicated to tracking progress, 60% of the damage to southern Iraq's transmission lines was fixed by the end of September.

Despite the considerable difficulty of acquiring spare parts and keeping the transmission system from further deterioration, everything else fell into place. On October 5—only five days behind schedule—Iraq's operational generating capacity stood at 4,417 MW. For Basra, in part because the Hartha Power Station was now capable of 350 MW, there was a total of 550 MW available, enough to satisfy even the city's peak demand.