How Much Oil is the Islamic State Group Producing? : Evidence from Remote Sensing
Accurately measuring oil production in low-governance contexts is an important task. Many terrorist organizations and insurgencies -- including the Islamic State group, also known as ISIL/ISIS or Daesh -- tap oil as a revenue source. Understanding...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/239611509455488520/How-much-oil-is-the-Islamic-state-group-producing-evidence-from-remote-sensing http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28617 |
| Summary: | Accurately measuring oil production in
low-governance contexts is an important task. Many terrorist
organizations and insurgencies -- including the Islamic
State group, also known as ISIL/ISIS or Daesh -- tap oil as
a revenue source. Understanding spatial and temporal
variation in production in their territory can help address
such threats by providing near real-time monitoring of their
revenue streams, helping to assess long-term economic
potential, and informing reconstruction strategies. More
broadly, remotely measuring extractive industry activity in
conflict-affected areas and other regions without reliable
administrative data can support a broad range of public
policy decisions and academic research. This paper uses
satellite multi-spectral imaging and ground-truth pre-war
output data to effectively construct a real-time day-to-day
census of oil production in areas controlled by the
terrorist group. The estimates of production levels were
approximately 56,000 barrels per day (bpd) from
July-December 2014, drop to an average of 35,000 bpd
throughout 2015, before dropping further to approximately
16,000 bpd in 2016. |
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