first time and Kurdistan over oil supplies

Iraq's economy shrinking for the first time and Kurdistan over oil supplies 


Baghdad-Erbil / Reuters 


The International Monetary Fund said Monday, "It is unlikely that Iraq's economy will contract by 2.7 percent this year", in the first contraction since the US-led invasion in 2003, and after that dominated organization "Islamic State" (Daash) on the vast expanses of Iraq one of the major oil-exporting countries. Showed regional economic outlook for the IMF, that the current economic slowdown comes after GDP growth of 4.2 percent in 2013, which was the weakest rate since 2007. The IMF said that "the conflict led to the expected Iraqi oil production growth stops to fall slightly to 2.9 million barrels per day , while exports amounting to 2.4 million barrels per day, close to last year's level remain. " He added that "it is also likely that declining GDP, compared with the non-oil growth of more than seven percent in 2013 in light of the fighting, which undermines confidence and disrupt fuel and electricity supply and increases the cost of trade and distribution and reduce investments." The Fund is expected to "re-acceleration of growth to 1.5 percent in 2015, supported by rising oil production, but cut its forecast for crude production in the long term to 4.4 million barrels per day in 2019, from 5.6 million barrels per day forecast in May." The IMF said that "the impact of war on oil production and exports in the near term seems to be limited at the present time." Adding that "the deterioration of the security situation will hurt the technical and administrative capacity to increase oil production and exports in the medium term." The IMF stressed that "the government's budget is under pressure due to higher spending on security and relief efforts." According to IMF estimates that the oil necessary to reach Iraq's budget to the breakeven price of $ 111.2 per barrel in 2014, up from US $ 106.1 in the last year. Fund warned that "if the fighting spilled over to Baghdad and the southern region, the Iraqi oil exports could fall by half, equivalent to about 1.5 percent of global consumption, compared with current levels." He added that "the production of high global standby power will only compensate for half of this shortfall."

In addition, sources in the oil industry and officials on Monday said, "The Kurdistan region of Iraq plans to increase pipeline capacity extends to Turkey to 700 thousand barrels per day after the development work." Line and inject 400 thousand barrels per day, the end of the year, from 280 thousand barrels per day currently, what increases the pressure on world prices that have been damaged due to increased supplies. A source in the industry: "currently executing the development works of art, and the pipeline will reach the maximum power capacity at 700 thousand barrels per day when completed." He pointed out that "I think that the work will be completed within two or three weeks."

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