DNO Shares Jump as it steps up Kurdistan Activity

Later this year, the company plans a well to appraise the Peshkabir discovery, which if successful, can be quickly tied into existing facilities. Excluding Peshkabir, DNO has set a Tawke production target of 135,000 bopd following its 2016 investments.

"We jump started investments at Tawke once Kurdistan provided regularity and predictability of payments," said DNO's Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, "and the results speak for themselves." He noted that the first three workovers were completed in about 30 days and at a combined cost of USD 1.5 million but generate USD 10 million a month in additional field export revenues.

DNO was the first Western oil company to enter Kurdistan following the U.S. led invasion of Iraq and the discovery of the Tawke field in 2006 set off the region's oil bonanza. A decade later, the Tawke field accounts for 50 percent of the production, 60 percent of the exports and 50 percent of the proven reserves of the three largest foreign operators in Kurdistan.

Since September 2015, the company has received USD 175 million from the Kurdistan Regional Government for Tawke deliveries (of which USD 128 million net to DNO). Included in these figures are three payments totaling USD 65 million (USD 48 million net to DNO) received in the first quarter of 2016.

DNO's cash balance increased from USD 238 million at the end of last year to USD 262 million at the end of March 2016.

(Sources: DNO, Yahoo!)