DNO to Ramp Up Drilling in Iraq's Kurdistan

Norway's DNO ASA has announced a major scaling-up of operations in the Kurdistan Region after surpassing 500 million barrels of cumulative oil production from the Tawke licence, where it holds a 75 percent operating stake.

Drilling will resume next week after a 2.5-year spending pause, beginning with a new production well in the Jeribe reservoir at the Tawke field. Two rigs, the DQE-51 and the company-owned Sindy, have been mobilised to drill eight wells through 2026, with the operator targeting a 25 percent increase in gross output to 100,000 bpd. The licence covers both the Tawke and Peshkabir fields.

Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani noted that despite the halt in new drilling following the 2023 export pipeline closure, Tawke still produces around 80,000 bpd through continuous low-cost optimisation. He added that DNO's two decades of technical knowledge give it strong confidence in unlocking further volumes from the licence.

DNO was the first Western oil company to enter Kurdistan in 2004 and has since grown into one of Europe's largest listed E&P firms. The company also expects to exit 2025 with 90,000 boepd of net production from its expanding Norwegian portfolio.