Dubai: Dana Gas, the UAE-based upstream oil and gas exploration company, and its partner Crescent Petroleum, said their joint gas production capacity in Iraq's northern Kurdistan has reached 200 million cubic feet per day.
The project partners, who were joined last year by OMV of Austria and MOL of Hungary in the Pearl consortium, have so far invested over $850 million (Dh3.121 billion) under contracts signed with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in April 2007, making it the largest energy investment by any company in Kurdistan. Current gas production ranges from 160 million to 180 million cubic feet per day to meet the prevailing demand of the two gas-fired power stations at Erbil and Chemchemal, with a combined capacity output of 1,250 megawatts, thereby providing almost continuous electricity to the communities of the Kurdistan region.
In total, over 72 billion cubic feet of gas and 3.3 million barrels of liquids have been produced since the start of production in October 2008, providing billions of dollars of savings in fuel costs for electricity for the Kurdistan Regional Government and the people of Iraq. During the project implementation, the companies installed a 180km gas pipeline across challenging mountainous terrain that sometimes required the clearing of minefields, and achieved first gas production in only 16 months, a record for a project of this scale.
Ahmad Al Arbeed, CEO of Dana Gas, said: "We hope to build on this achievement to grow our projects and enable further progress and prosperity for the local community."
