Norway’s DNO has discovered additional oil at its Benenan-3 well in the company’s Erbil block in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

The firm encountered an additional 210-metre oil column in the field’s Najmeh reservoir, which could more than double its reserve estimates to between 600 to 700 million barrels. DNO is now preparing revised estimates of recoverable reserves for the Benenan field.

According to a 6 November company statement, the well produced 800-1,000 barrels a day (b/d) of oil from an open hole test in the Lower Najmeh interval.

DNO has a 40 per cent operator’s stake in the Erbil production sharing contract which contains two fields, Benenan and Bastora.

The Benenan-3 well was originally designed as a horizontal producer in the Upper Najmeh formation with a deeper deviated exploratory probe. It will now be completed as a deviated well capable of producing from several Najmeh intervals as well as from the Bekhme formation.

The Benenan and Bastora field development programme is continuing, with a second development well scheduled for mid-2013. DNO International holds a 40 per cent working interest and is the operator of the Erbil licence.

DNO also has stakes in the Tawke field, along with UK-Turkish joint venture Genel Energy and the Dohuk production sharing contract. It exports about 50,000 barrels a day (b/d) of crude oil through the Kirkuk pipeline to the port of Ceyhan on the Turkish coast of the Mediterranean Sea.