Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum exceed 500M boe in Khor Mor field

UAE-based Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum, alongside their partners in the Pearl Petroleum consortium, have said the cumulative production from their Khor Mor project, the largest non-associated gas field in Iraq, has exceeded 500 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe).

The power generated by the Khor Mor power plant supplies more than 75 per cent of the electricity generation capacity in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, benefiting more than 6 million people.

Total investments to date have reached $3.5 billion, creating more than 20,000 direct and indirect job opportunities in the region.

This production achievement coincides with the partners announcing a series of development initiatives that will provide tremendous growth in the coming years.

In March 2025, daily production from the Khor Mor field reached 525 million standard cubic feet of natural gas, representing a 75 per cent increase since 2017, in addition to 15,200 barrels per day of condensates and 1,070 tons per day of liquefied petroleum gas.

The partners announced the acceleration of the development of the Khor Mor 250 project, which is expected to increase the field's production capacity by 50 per cent by the first quarter of 2026, with $1 billion in financing, including $250 million from the U.S. Development Finance Corporation.

The consortium has initiated a new appraisal strategy for the Khor Mor field to explore opportunities to develop additional hydrocarbon resources in the field and plan for subsequent phases. It is also exploring the Chemchemal field to produce up to 71 million standard cubic feet per day by 2026, with an investment of $160 million to drill three wells.

Pearl Petroleum is exploring additional financing options and has engaged DNB Markets, a subsidiary of DNB Bank AS, and Pareto Securities AS to partner on additional financing options and to manage and arrange a series of meetings with fixed income investors for a potential issuance of a new five-year senior secured bond to support growth.

Pearl Petroleum Consortium was established in 2009, initially comprising Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum as co-operators, each with a 35 per cent stake.

OMV, MOL, and RWE subsequently joined with 10 per cent stakes each. Since its inception, the project has succeeded in providing continuous, affordable energy supplies on a large scale across the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, with a significant and tangible impact on the economy, society, and environment in the region.

The percentage of local workers in Pearl Petroleum's work teams reached approximately 80 per cent, including at the management level, which supports the region's economy and significantly improves its activity.

The clean natural gas produced by the project in the Khor Mor field has avoided 59 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions to date, reducing total greenhouse gas emissions by more than 20 per cent by 2024, reaching 200,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. It has also reduced its total energy consumption by 5 per cent, resulting in a total carbon intensity of 4.4 kg per barrel of oil equivalent, one of the lowest levels recorded across the sector.