Bioar Khansa, the economic security adviser for the Kurdistan Regional Government, said that the Kurdistan Region had increased its exports to 700,000 barrels per day to offset the financial restraints that the area is currently experiencing. Before the year ends, Khansa says that the region will hopefully increase its oil productions by 900,000 barrels.
Khansa details that the Kurdistan Regional Government decided to increase its oil exports to 700,000 barrels a day due to the lack support it is getting from Baghdad. Kurdistan should be getting payment from Baghdad for the former’s share of the budget for 2015. The presence of refugees within Kurdistan, as well as the huge number of displaced locals due to the ongoing war in the Middle East, has placed a tremendous strain on the government’s economy.
The increase of oil production to 900,000 barrels of oil per day ensures that the people working for the oil and gas industry will be getting paid accordingly for their hard work, which will amount to about $750 million a month.
Crude oil prices have declined sharply in the past few months due to the oil surplus in the global market. The need to offset financial losses, as well as the shortage of facilities that can store oil barrels are the major reasons that led to the surplus of the precious black liquid. Despite its surplus, however, oil and gas firms all over the world are showing no signs of slowing down, indicating that companies and investors are confident that oil prices will soon get corrected. Construction giant Unaoil, whose operations span across several regions of the Middle East, recently built three power plants in Tuba, Zubair 1, and PS1 stations for South Oil Company, which are all estimated to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2015.
The actual month that Kurdistan will begin increasing its oil barrel productions to 900,000 a day have not been disclosed by Khansa just yet but it is reported that details will follow soon.
