Oil production grows as Kurds hit the on-switch

With Kurdistan pumping 250,000 barrels a day (b/d) of oil and exporting three-quarters of that volume, Iraq’s north is emerging as the Middle East’s fastest-growing hydrocarbons player

Despite continuing arguments between the Kurdish leadership in Erbil and the central Iraqi government in Baghdad, oil and gas assets in the three Kurdish provinces are attracting serious blue-chip attention. Vallares, the oil and gas acquisition vehicle established by former BP chief Tony Hayward, is said to be considering investing in Turkey’s Genel Enerji, which holds licence interests in the Kurdistan’s Taq Taq and Tawke oilfields – producing a combined 140,000 b/d. Meanwhile, the UAE’s Rak Petroleum, which holds a 30% stake in Norway’s DNO International, operator of the 70,000 b/d Tawke field, is said to be gearing up for a take-over of DNO. Rak chief executive (CEO) Bijan Mossavar-Rahma