DNO to Restart Drilling in Kurdistan After Producing 500 Million Barrels from Tawke License

Peregraf- Norwegian oil and gas operator DNO announced on Thursday that it is stepping up operations in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq after surpassing a major milestone of 500 million barrels of oil produced from the Tawke license, where the company holds a 75% operating stake.

Drilling is scheduled to resume next week at the flagship Tawke license following a two-and-a-half-year spending halt. Operations will begin with the spudding of a new production well targeting the shallow Jeribe reservoir in the Tawke field. Two rigs — the “DQE-51” and DNO’s own “Sindy” — have already been mobilized to drill eight wells through 2026, as the company aims to boost gross operated production by 25% to reach 100,000 barrels per day.

The Tawke license includes the Tawke and Peshkabir fields, two of the region’s largest fields operated by an international company.

“Despite halting new drilling following the 2023 export pipeline closure and the drop in revenues, we are still pumping an impressive 80,000 barrels of oil per day with continuous, low-cost tweaks to the wells,” said Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani. “With two decades of experience working these complex reservoirs, we have great confidence in our ability to extract much, much more oil from the fields. DNO holds the key to Tawke.”

DNO was the first Western company to enter Kurdistan in 2004, helping to launch a modern oil industry that has since played a major role in transforming the region’s economy. The company has also expanded significantly in its home market offshore Norway, where it is on track to exit 2025 with net production of 90,000 barrels of oil and gas equivalent.

DNO said it continues to position itself as one of the most active operators on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, driving an industry effort to accelerate the timeline from discovery to production.