ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Despite the Iraq-Turkey pipeline being “twisted into a Gordian knot,” Norwegian energy firm DNO reported that it doubled profits in the second quarter of this year, its net production rose six percent, and the company is preparing a new rig to drill for its Tawke license in the Kurdistan Region.
“We are not realizing full value for our Kurdistan barrels with the shutdown of the Iraq-Türkiye export pipeline, now twisted into a Gordian knot,” said DNO’s Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani in a midyear report on Thursday. “Until the knot is cut, we will compensate by spending more to produce more and by requiring payments in advance to our international bank accounts,” he added.
DNO restarted production in its flagship Tawke field last August after a four-month shut-in due to a ban on Kurdish oil exports that squeezed the Region’s oil and gas industry.
To that end, the company stated: “DNO increased spending in Kurdistan during the quarter to optimize production from existing wells at the flagship Tawke license (DNO 75 percent and operator)...”
Oil exports from the Kurdistan Region through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline have been halted since March 2023 after a Paris-based arbitration court ruled in favor of Baghdad against Ankara, saying the latter had breached a 1973 pipeline agreement by allowing Erbil to begin independent oil exports in 2014.
In the second quarter of this year, “net production rose six percent to 79,400 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), of which Kurdistan contributed 59,800 boepd, North Sea 16,300 boepd and West Africa 3,300 boepd,” DNO said.
The oil and gas company reported “a doubling of net profit to USD 35 million on revenue of USD 137 million in the second quarter of 2024.”
Looking forward, the Tawke and Peshkabir fields are producing “an average of 83,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day” in the first half of the current fiscal quarter.
“To help address natural field decline, in addition to placing previously drilled wells into production, DNO prepares to mobilize a rig to drill the first new well on the license since early 2023,” DNO said, referring to its Tawke license
The firm also has a license at the Bashiqa field, where, “a 72-day testing program has commenced on the newly drilled B-3 well.”
DNO and other energy companies increasingly depend on tanker trucks to export oil and gas that is sold on international markets.
