Oil Ministry must increase production this year – legislature

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: A member of the Iraqi Parliament’s Oil & Energy Committee, Suzan al-Saad, has called on the Oil Ministry to increase it oil production, in order to avoid a “deficit” in the State Budget in the forthcoming years, similar to that which occurred in the Budget of 2012. “The decrease in oil prices must push the Oil Ministry to draw up a future plan for its production,” Saad said in a statement, received by IraqiNews.com news agency. “The deficit in the 2012 Budget necessitates the Oil Ministry to increase its production this year, in order to avoid a deficit in the forthcoming years,” she added. The Iraqi Council of Ministers on May 12, 2011 on a draft State Budget for the year 2012, that had registered 117 trillion (t) Iraqi dinars, i.e.about US $100 billion, with a deficit that reached 17 trillion (t) dinars, which equals about US $14.5 billion, based on an average price of an Iraqi barrel of oil, namely 85 dollars, with total exports of 2.6 million barrels per day (bpd). The Investment Projects had scored 35 percent of the size of the country’s State Budget, whilst other sectors, ld by the Commissioning Budget, took the remaining allocations of the Budget. 817