Norway’s DNO International has announced a new discovery at its Tawke field in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, testing 1,500 barrels a day (b/d) of crude at the Tawke-17 well.

The discovery in a Jurassic formation, 200 meters below Tawke’s main Cretaceous reservoir, “likely bumps recoverable reserves on the Tawke licence to the 1 million barrel mark”, said Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, DNO’s executive chairman in a 11 June company statement.

DNO is currently producing 100,000 b/d and is targeting 200,000 b/d of production from the field by 2015, but may revise the target following the drilling its first horizontal well flowing at 8,000 b/d. A second horizontal well is being drilled.

DNO is the operator of the Tawke production licence, with a 55 per cent interest, along with UK-Turkish joint venture Genel Energy, which holds 25 per cent and the remainder with the Kurdistan Regional Government.