By DPA
Washington : Up to 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq's declared oil production has gone missing in Iraq over four years and is not accounted for, according to a draft report quoted Saturday by the New York Times Saturday.
The missing oil ranges from 100,000 to 300,000 barrels a day out of the estimated 2 million barrels pumped in Iraq every day, the Times reported.
The draft report was prepared by the US Government Accountability Office, based on statistics from the State Department and the government of Iraq. The final report is to be released next week.
It was not clear what happened to the oil – whether it has been siphoned off in corrupt schemes or is simply an accounting error, with Iraqi government officials over-reporting production amounts.
The US had set a goal for Iraq oil production of 3 million barrels a day. In a related issue, the government has been unable to iron out the controversial issue of distribution of income from oil reserves – the country's major source of wealth.