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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The lack of available kerosene to heat homes is raising concerns among residents of the Kurdistan Region’s Soran administration as temperatures continue dropping.
With temperatures around 4 Celsius during the day and below zero degrees at night, residents are worried by the lack of available kerosene, or heating oil, to keep them warm.
“In December last year, we paid for the full amount of kerosene that we should receive, but only half arrived while the other half did not,” Jihan Chato, a resident, told Rudaw’s Bakhtyar Qadir on Tuesday.
The shortages have been made worse by the government’s inability to deliver supplies on time.
Hoshyar Ahmad, a resident of Soran administration, told Rudaw that if they do not distribute three barrels of heating oil annually, then it is “not enough.”
Other residents say that the delays and shortages are not the only issue as the price of kerosene is high.
“I have to work for 13 days to buy a barrel of kerosene,” Sayid Qadir, a local worker, said.
“I have not received kerosene yet.” Mikael Ali, another resident, added. “The price is very expensive,” he continues.
“People agreed on the price of the kerosene that they receive from the government, yet the distribution is slow.”
So far, around 40 percent of the city's 84,000 residents have not received their kerosene share.
“We do not have our own laboratory and warehouse, so It has to go to the Erbil warehouse and come to us through the Erbil directorate,” Amir Shanadar, director of kerosene and minerals in Soran, said.
“They will inform us beforehand about the portion of the kerosene, so we cannot distribute it among those 158 distributors in the Soran administration and we have to plan for it.”
The price of a barrel of kerosene on the market is around 240,000 Iraqi dinars ($164).
The KRG usually distributes heating oil for half of its actual price but it is not clear if it will apply the same mechanism this year.
People from mountainous areas and surrounding areas paid 55,000 Iraqi dinars in 2021, but those who lived in city centers paid 90,000 Iraqi dinars
According to Rudaw’s Rudaw’s Baxtyar Qadir, some people are cutting trees to warm up themselves in the Soran administration.
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