BAGHDAD, March 5 (UPI) -- The Iraq Oil Ministry will set production quotas for provinces to ensure oil revenue sharing, though the effects of war still hamper the vital oil sector.
"Each province will be notified of its weekly quota to guarantee fair sharing," Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani was quoted in a ministry statement.
In order to redistribute oil revenues to the entire country by population, a move more likely after a recent tentative agreement on a hydrocarbons law, the provinces will be relied upon to keep oil production at a certain level to guarantee they receive money, the Voices of Iraq news agency reports.
Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and produces about 1.7 million barrels per day, though that's nearly a million before prewar levels.
Development of its struggling oil sector has been hindered by the current violence and lack of security, as well as the absence of a law governing the country's hydrocarbons sector.
Last week, the central government and Kurdistan Regional Government agreed to a draft of a law that outlined the role of each in developing oil resources.
Attacks, the lack of investment and inconsistent supplies of electricity are hampering both production and refining, keeping provinces from hitting quotas.
"The ministry was using the pre-planned system to distribute oil products over the Iraqi provinces but due to sabotage and technical glitches there was a gap between the planned amount and the actual distributed amount," Shahristani said.
