Norway’s Mideast-focused independent DNO International has added an extra 50,000 b/d to its plans to boost production capacity at its 100,000 b/d Tawke field in Northern Iraq to 200,000 b/d. Its original 150,000 b/d expansion was planned for end-2013. “We reached 100k gross capacity a few months ago,” a DNO spokesperson tells MEES, “200k is the next target, but timing is not yet confirmed,” he says.
However, Iraq’s latest political crisis has hung a question mark over further upstream development in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). There are intense political discussions in the wake of the passage of a 2013 federal Iraqi budget that snubbed the Kurds to give their oil investors a mere $645mn allocation for costs. Unless resolved, the budget clash could prompt firms such as Anglo-Turkish firm Genel Energy to postpone a doubling of production capacity at its Taq Taq oil field to 200,000 b/d (MEES, 15 March). (CONTINUED - 717 WORDS)
