Gulf Keystone Petroleum, an independent oil and gas exploration and production company, is preparing to invite tender for a second drilling rig at its operations site in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
This was confirmed by Jon Harris, CEO of the Bermuda-based company as part of a drive to kickstart production in the Shaikan field area of the country. Gulf Keystone is tendering oil field equipment, including downhole equipment, trees, tubular casing and water handling units.
Harris maintained that the company is also expanding the existing processing facilities, including installing water and salt handling units to remove impurities from the produced oil.
The Shaikan field is one of the biggest fields by production and reserves in the Kurdistan region of Iraq with over 500 million barrels of gross 2P reserves.
Gulf Keystone Petroleum operates and holds an 80% working interest in the field, while the remaining 20% is held by MOL Group, a Budapest-based oil and gas company.
Gulf Keystone entered into a production sharing contract for the Shaikan field with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in November 2007.
The field was discovered in August 2009, while the commercial operations started in July 2013. Gulf Keystone also received approval for the original Shaikan field development plan (FDP) from the KRG’s Ministry of Natural Resources in June 2013. Since its inception, Gulf Keystone has invested $1.7 billion in the field. The field’s gross oil production was over 43000 barrels of oil per day as of 2021.
A former energy official at the United States Energy Department has said that highlighting the importance of the Kurdistan Region’s gas could effectively “replace Russian and Iranian gas” supplies.
US President Joe Biden is visiting the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia, in an apparent move to discuss energy supplies, and Kurdistan could figure into the agenda prominently. The shortened supply in the international energy market as a result of the war in Ukraine has highlighted the importance of smaller players, such as the Kurdistan Region, for helping to sustain the world market.
