DNO ramps up investment in Kurdistan’s oil

The boost in spending will depend on higher revenues and regular export payments.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Norwegian oil and gas operator DNO on Thursday announced its plans to double spending in the Kurdistan Region’s oil.

In a statement released on its website, DNO announced a 50 percent rise in 2018 spending in the Kurdistan Region to a USD 250 million net for the company.

According to the statement, the boost in spending in the Region will depend on higher revenues from oil sales and regular export payments by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

DNO fast-tracked the development of the Peshkabir field with two wells currently producing a total of 16,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), the statement said.

The DNO statement added that the newly produced oil would be comingled for export with another 97,000 bpd from the other DNO-operated field, Tawke, on the same license.

DNO’s Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani revealed that at the Peshkabir wells, the company exported two million bpd in the second half of 2017, with an estimated value of USD 100 million.

Rahmani added that “we have only started to appraise and develop this field which continues to surprise to the upside.”

“A total of six Peshkabir wells will be drilled this year with field production expected to reach 30,000 bpd by summer and continue to ramp up in the second half of the year,” the DNO statement read.

The company noted it had achieved a technical milestone with the first ever multilateral well and the first ever dual completion in Kurdistan after re-entering the sidetracking of the Hawler-1 well “to appraise the Banenan heavy oil filed in the Erbil license.”

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany