Upbeat outlook in Iraqi Kurdistan

Oil and gas developers in the semi-autonomous region are looking forward to a year of rebound

Confidence is growing among producers developing fields in Iraqi Kurdistan that positive momentum will continue in 2021, as new drilling campaigns kick off during a continuing oil price uptick. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) improving the regularity of its payments for oil sales throughout second, third and fourth quarters of 2020 is one driver of this optimism. A year ago, Erbil deferred hundreds of millions of dollars of payments to operators for November 2019-February 2020 crude sales for at least nine months.  “The specific reason for the delay to payments has never been clarified, [but] generally the KRG has been very good at paying their invoices,” says Daniel Slater, oil and