Iraq Getting Cheap

Iraq. The birthplace of civilization, and currently a smoking mess. After decades of war under Saddam, and another decade of civil war after he was deposed, ISIS is there still fighting away. All of that adds up to a constant stream of military expenditure and disruptions.
But that is fine, they could pay for it, because they have oil. A lot of oil. An estimated 10% of the remaining global reserves. Its why the US invaded both times. The oil has to flow to keep the world moving ahead. After Saddam fell and the country stabilized a little bit, oil companies came in to start reaping the profits. Iraq had contracts where the companies were paid based on how much production was brought online. That was fine, oil was worth a lot, and Iraq had plans to produce a lot. They originally had plans to be pumping over ten million barrels per day by 2020. That kind of fell apart when ISIS started their nonsense, but production has been rising and everyone was making money. That was until the price crash.
Iraqi oil contracts are paid out by the government after they sell the oil. So a lot of oil companies who spent years working old fields to increase they production were screwed over. In 2015 payouts to these companies significantly dropped or were withheld. The same is happening this year. the Iraqi government is currently pleading with the oil companies to increase drilling and production, saying that as more oil is sold, Iraq will have more money to pay them. This puts the petros in a bind. They want to get paid, but don’t want to be expending a lot of capital and resources when they are already having trouble collecting. And this spotty record of payment will keep companies away from developing new fields. Until the price of oil starts making some serious headway Iraq is in the same boat as Iran. A lot of oil, that just isn’t worth the trouble of getting at.