Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum have announced the full resumption of the expansion project at the Khor Mor field in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), which the companies jointly operate on behalf of the Pearl Petroleum consortium
The KM250 expansion involves further investment of US$600mn to add 250 million cubic feet per day of much-needed additional gas production to supply the local power stations. The project construction work had been put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic but is now on track for a new target start date of April 2023, after agreement to lift the force majeure with both the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the contractor.
Under a Gas Sales agreement signed in March 2019 with the KRG Ministry of Natural Resources, Pearl Petroleum will sell the additional quantities of gas to supply the power stations with affordable and environmentally cleaner fuel, and further enhance electricity supplies.
Current production at the Khor Mor field is 440 million cubic feet per day of natural gas as well as 15,700 barrels per day of condensate and 1,020 tonnes of liquified petroleum gas (LPG), or a total of 110,400 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day, making it the largest overall producer in the KRI and the largest private sector upstream gas operation in Iraq.
Total investment to date exceeds US$2bn, with total cumulative production of over 332 mmbbl of oil equivalent, which has resulted in significant fuel cost savings and economic benefits for the Kurdistan Region and Iraq as a whole. In addition 43 million tonnes of CO2 emissions have been eliminated by displacing liquid fuels, which in turn has made a positive contribution to tackling global climate change as well as reducing local air pollution.
Majid Jafar, CEO of Crescent Petroleum and board managing director of Dana Gas, commented, “After a year of delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are pleased to fully resume the KM250 expansion project to invest US$600mn and grow the gas production almost 60% within two years from now, supporting the local electricity provision even further. Despite the challenges the whole world has faced over the past year we have kept our operations safe and managed to grow production, and we are grateful to all our staff and to the KRG for its support.”
