Will rising oil prices reduce the 2023 budget deficit?, 9 SEPT

 Will rising oil prices reduce the 2023 budget deficit?

According to economist Nabil Al-Marsoumi, the oil revenues earned until August 2023 have reached $61.513 billion, which is equivalent to 80 trillion dinars. However, the estimated oil revenues in the 2023 budget are $90 billion, equivalent to 117 trillion dinars.

Al-Marsoumi stated in a blog post on his personal Facebook account, which was followed by “Baghdad Today”, that if the high oil prices continue and Iraq sells its oil at $85 per barrel, it is possible for the country to generate oil revenues of $8.7 billion per month during the remaining third of the year.

During a recent speech, he noted that Iraq is expected to generate up to $34.8 billion in oil revenues between September and December of 2023. This should bring the total oil revenue for 2023 to $96.213 billion or 125 trillion dinars. The surplus of $6.213 billion, or 8 trillion dinars, will help offset the deficit in the 2023 budget, but only if the non-oil revenues, estimated at 17 trillion dinars, are fully realized. Unfortunately, it may be unlikely given that the net non-oil revenues achieved in the first half of 2023 were only 421 billion dinars. Therefore, while the high price of oil is beneficial, it may not be enough to significantly reduce the budget deficit in 2023.

According to official figures released by the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, Iraq has achieved record-high financial revenues of over $115 billion in the past year (2022), thanks to the export of crude oil. This marks a significant increase from previous years and is a noteworthy achievement for the country.

According to the figures, the daily export rate was 3.32 million barrels, resulting in an annual export of 1.21 billion barrels.

On Monday, economist Nabil Al-Marsoumi announced that Iraq had achieved its highest trade surplus in 2022. He also noted that the surplus was not the result of any reforms.

In his post, Al-Marsawi explained that Iraq achieved the highest trade surplus in the past year by pointing out that it is “the difference between the value of exported goods and imported goods.”

He said, “In the history of the oil industry, which is almost a hundred years old, the surplus achieved for the year 2022 is significant. It amounts to 53.54 billion dollars and is due to the increase in oil exports. The total oil exports amounted to about 120 billion dollars, of which 115 billion dollars came from crude oil exports. The remaining 5 billion dollars mostly came from black oil exports.”

Al-Marsoumi explained that the increase in Iraq’s trade surplus is not the result of any domestic efforts towards reform, development or economic diversification, but is instead due to an external factor – specifically, the rise in oil prices. He noted that the average annual oil price in 2022 exceeded $95 per barrel.