Publication: How Much Oil is the Islamic State Group Producing?: Evidence from Remote Sensing
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Date
2017-10
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Published
2017-10
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Abstract
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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“Do, Quy-Toan; Shapiro, Jacob N.; Elvidge, Christopher D.; Abdel-Jelil, Mohamed; Ahn, Daniel P.; Baugh, Kimberly; Hansen-Lewis, Jamie; Zhizhin, Mikhail. 2017. How Much Oil is the Islamic State Group Producing?: Evidence from Remote Sensing. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8231. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28617 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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