DNO International ASA has announced that its deep Tawke-17 well tested 1,500 barrels a day of 26-28 degree API crude oil from an Upper Jurassic reservoir underlying the Tawke field in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Separately, the Tawke-20 well, the Company’s first horizontal well in the Tawke field, has flowed an average of 8,000 barrels a day from each of the first four of ten fractured corridors penetrated by the well. Testing continues on both wells.
“We are very pleased that initial Tawke-17 results are in line with the Company’s pre-drill estimates,” said Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, DNO International’s executive chairman. “This discovery in the Sargelu formation, over 200 meters below the main field Cretaceous reservoir, likely bumps recoverable reserves on the Tawke license to the one billion barrel mark,” he added.
Drilling of a second Tawke horizontal well continues on schedule. “If this second well, Tawke-23, demonstrates the significant deliverability uptick we are now seeing in Tawke-20, we will go back to the drawing board and consider further enhancements to our current target of 200,000 barrels a day of production capacity by 2015,” Mr. Mossavar-Rahmani said. Last month the Company announced that it had met its previous goal of delivering 100,000 barrels a day from the Tawke field following 72 hours of well and facility tests.
The Tawke-17 well, the deepest drilled by the Company in the Tawke field, encountered several Triassic zones that proved either tight or water bearing. Two additional identified reservoir intervals in the Upper Jurassic remain to be perforated and tested.
DNO International holds a 55 percent interest in and operates the Tawke license. Genel Energy plc holds 25 percent and the Kurdistan Regional Government the remaining 20 percent interest.
