How Much Oil is the Islamic State Group Producing? : Evidence from Remote Sensing

Do, Quy-Toan ; Shapiro, Jacob N. ; Elvidge, Christopher D. ; Abdel-Jelil, Mohamed ; Ahn, Daniel P. ; Baugh, Kimberly ; Hansen-Lewis, Jamie ; Zhizhin, Mikhail

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: OIL;    REMOTE SENSING;    FLARING;    ISLAMIC STATE;    OIL PRODUCTION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8231
RP-ID  :  WPS8231

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Accurately measuring oil production inlow-governance contexts is an important task. Many terroristorganizations and insurgencies -- including the IslamicState group, also known as ISIL/ISIS or Daesh -- tap oil asa revenue source. Understanding spatial and temporalvariation in production in their territory can help addresssuch threats by providing near real-time monitoring of theirrevenue streams, helping to assess long-term economicpotential, and informing reconstruction strategies. Morebroadly, remotely measuring extractive industry activity inconflict-affected areas and other regions without reliableadministrative data can support a broad range of publicpolicy decisions and academic research.This paper usessatellite multi-spectral imaging and ground-truth pre-waroutput data to effectively construct a real-time day-to-daycensus of oil production in areas controlled by theterrorist group. The estimates of production levels wereapproximately 56,000 barrels per day (bpd) fromJuly-December 2014, drop to an average of 35,000 bpdthroughout 2015, before dropping further to approximately16,000 bpd in 2016.