Dana Gas, the leading publicly-listed regional natural gas company in the Middle East, and its partner, Crescent Petroleum, the oldest private oil and gas company in the region, have reported record sales and gas production from its operations in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), which surged to hit 452 million cu ft of gas per day (MMscf/d) at the end of 2021.

 

The production milestone is the culmination of numerous process improvements at the Khor Mor gas plant, including a bypass project completed in 2020 as well as a debottlenecking programme earlier in 2018. 

 

Together, the process improvements have grown the production by 50% from 305 MMscf/d in 2018, it added.

 

Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum jointly operate the Khor Mor and Chemchemal gas fields on behalf of the Pearl Petroleum consortium, supplying the gas which enables much needed electricity generation in the KRI, and also producing close to 16,000 barrels of condensate and 1,000 tonnes of LPG per day. 

 

The successful process improvements will be reinforced by the KM250 expansion project at the plant which is currently under implementation, and will increase total capacity by an additional 55% to 700 MMscf/d by April 2023.

 

On its key achievements for 2021, Dana Gas said major works for its $630 million KM250 expansion project resumed in April last year after a delay of one year due to the Covid pandemic and it is now on track for the new target start date of April 2023. 

 

The KM250 Gas Expansion Project is supported by a $250 million financing agreement for 7 years with the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) which was announced in September 2021. 

After completion of the KM250 project, the partners also plan a further KM500 train that would raise production to almost 1 billion cubic feet per day to meet rising demand for cleaner burning natural gas and electricity generation in the Kurdistan Region and all of Iraq.

 

As part of the expansion works, the company is also preparing to drill up to five development wells, which are scheduled to commence production in March 2022, it added.

 

Majid Jafar, CEO of Crescent Petroleum and Board Managing Director of Dana Gas, said: "The achievement of this production milestone underscores the progress we continue to make at Khor Mor to meet the rapidly growing demand for natural gas in the KRI."

 

"Despite the challenges the whole world has faced over the past two years, we are proud to have continued delivering uninterrupted supply of clean-burning natural gas to support the KRI economy and enable a healthy recovery. Meanwhile our major expansion plans at the Khor Mor and Chemchemal fields to target 1 billion cubic feet per day in the coming few years will enable improved services across the region for years to come," he added.

 

Dana Gas CEO Dr Patrick Allman-Ward said: "This milestone is testament to our people and their hard work making consistent production growth possible at our Khor Mor gas plant. Our continued investments since 2018, notably the Khor Mor de-bottlenecking and bypass projects, have allowed us to deliver reliable supplies of clean energy to support the KRI economy and its people, with enhanced economic and environmental benefits which will increase as we further grow production.”