Gulf Keystone Petroleum, DNO and Genel Energy have confirmed that they have received payments from the regional government for the oil exported from Kurdistan Region of Iraq
DNO received US$30mn as partial payment towards oil exported from the Tawke field, which will be shared pro-rata with its Tawke License partner Genel Energy, and Gulf Keystone received a gross payment of US$15mn for crude oil export sales from the Shaikan field.
In addition to the latest payments, Genel Energy also said that the Taq Taq field partners had received a gross payment of US$30mn from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for oil exported through the Kurdistan Region of Iraq-Turkey pipeline.
Jón Ferrier, Gulf Keystone Petroleum CEO, said, “We are pleased to start 2016 with confirmation of payment for December’s Shaikan crude oil export sales. This is the fourth consecutive monthly payment, for which we would like to state our thanks to our partner, the MNR.”
Earlier in August 2015, the KRG’s Ministry of Natural Resources announced that the KRG would pay producing international oil companies (IOCs) a portion of the revenue from its direct crude oil sales, on a monthly basis, from September 2015 onwards.
As export rises in early 2016, the KRG has claimed that it aims to make additional revenue available to IOCs. Late last year, DNO executive chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani revealed that DNO, Genel and Gulf Keystone’s combined capital expenditure (CAPEX) in Kurdistan Region of Iraq has fallen considerably as a result of the government’s lack of payments to producing international oil companies.
Addressing delegates at the Kurdistan-Iraq Oil & Gas Conference held in London in December 2015, Mossavar-Rahmani said that the total CAPEX of all three companies in region in the first half of 2015 fell to below US$200mn from US$800mn for the full year in 2014. The DNO chairman also revealed that around US$4bbn is being lost in revenue per year due to production decreases in Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which have been partly caused by the uncertain payment strategy for IOCs by the KRG.
