Bekhme Dam

Bekhme Dam
Location of Bekhme Dam in Iraq
Location	Arbil Governorate, Iraq
Coordinates	36°42′03″N 44°16′16″E / 36.70083°N 44.27111°E / 36.70083; 44.27111Coordinates: 36°42′03″N 44°16′16″E / 36.70083°N 44.27111°E / 36.70083; 44.27111
Status	Unfinished
Construction began	1979
Construction cost	US$ 1,400,000,000 (to date); US$ 2,600,000,000 (estimated total cost)
Operator(s)	Ministry of Water Resources
Dam and spillways
Impounds	Great Zab
Height	230 m (750 ft) (planned)
Length	600 m (2,000 ft) (planned)
Reservoir
Total capacity	17 km3 (4.1 cu mi) (planned)
Surface area	100 km2 (39 sq mi) (planned)
Power station
Installed capacity	1,500 MW (planned)

The Bekhme Dam is an unfinished multi-purpose rock-fill dam on the Great Zab 60 kilometres (37 mi) northeast of Arbil, in the Arbil Governorate of Iraqi Kurdistan, northern Iraq.

The main purposes of the dam would be to produce 1,500 MW of hydro-electricity and to manage flooding. If completed, the 230-metre (750 ft) high Bekhme Dam will be the largest in Iraq. Construction on the dam began in 1979 and was halted during the Iran–Iraq War. Construction started again in 1988 and halted in 1990, prior to the Gulf War. In post-2003 Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government began efforts to rebuild the Bekhme Dam.

The Bekhme Dam was planned in the 1950s with a preliminary study done by Harza Engineering Co., and in 1979 and through the early 1980s the project was redesigned by EPDC of Japan. Construction was assigned to a consortium of Turkish-Yugoslavian firms (ENKA Hidrogradnja and Energoprojekt). Construction on the project started in 1987 with access roads, residential camps, construction facilities and the development of quarries and borrow areas. Tunneling and bulk excavation works started in 1988. The works were halted in late 1990 after the UN sanctions due to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and with the onset of the Gulf War, as well as consequential poor security environment. By June 1990, the first stage of the construction was complete, the diversion of the Great Zab, facilitated by an incomplete 45-metre (148 ft) high clay core rockfill cofferdam, which was to become part of the upstream shoulder of the main dam, and through two large diversion tunnels.

The dam project involves a large underground power house and transformers chamber, largely completed into the left abutment. The power intake and spillway intake are also located on the left abutment, with associated tunnels through the limestone. Those tunnels emerge through one structure on the left abutment, downstream of the dam, augmented by a plunge pool structure. A system of drainage tunnels was excavated into the left and right abutments at the foot of the main dam. The Bekhme Dam is designed with a central clay core, two upstream and downstream filter zones, and rockfill shoulders (limestone). The upstream and downstream faces of the dam are designed with gradients of 1 vertical to 2.5 horizontal. The dam project was expected to be completed in 1992, resulting in a reservoir with a capacity of 17 cubic kilometres (4.1 cu mi) and a surface area of 100 square kilometres (39 sq mi). There is a potential for a pumped-storage scheme (several gigawatts) to be constructed on the left abutment; that still requires further optimisation and investigation.