Norwegian Firm Reports 60% Oil Production Growth In Kurdistan

Norwegian oil and gas operator DNO ASA has boosted its oil production at the Tawke license in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region by two-thirds to 25,000 bpd, the company said on Tuesday, after completing a well testing program at the Peshkabir oil field.

The Peshkabir-4 well has started to produce at a rate of 10,000 bpd, the Norwegian company said, adding that the Peshkabir-5 well, completed last month, is currently undergoing final testing. DNO plans to bring the fifth well online in August and expects to exceed its 2018 summer production target of 30,000 bpd at Peshkabir.

“And we expect Peshkabir to continue to surprise to the upside,” DNO’s Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani said in the company statement.

The firm, which holds a 75-percent interest in the Tawke license, is drilling a sixth and a seventh well at the Peshkabir oil field, which was brought into production last year.

DNO and its minority-interest partner Genel Energy plc hold the Tawke license, which contains the Tawke and Peshkabir fields. Together, oil production from the two fields has averaged 106,000 bpd year-to-date.

In April this year, DNO said that it was expanding and accelerating its oil production operations in Kurdistan, alongside building up exposure in the North Sea.

Effective April 10, 2018, DNO added a third license in Kurdistan, assuming the operatorship of the Baeshiqa license with a 40-percent interest alongside ExxonMobil, Turkish Energy Company, and the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Meanwhile, Iraq—OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer after Saudi Arabia—is still in talks with Turkey and the Kurdistan regional authorities about resuming exports from the Kirkuk oil fields through the Ceyhan pipeline on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. As of early July, production at the Kirkuk oil fields stood at around 220,000 bpd, all of which is being sent to local refineries.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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