The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has given the troubled oil company Genel a 12-month extension to sign off final agreements on projects to build a gas treatment plant and gas transportation pipeline in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Progress on the construction of the pipeline and the gas treatment plant are a condition of the Gas Lifting Agreements (GLAs) that Genel signed with the KRG in February 2017.

With the 12-month extension granted the revised date by which the conditions have to be satisfied is 9 February 2019.

Both projects have stalled and there has been little progress in recent years due to Genel’s financial problems.

The pipeline, known as the Khurmala to Fish Khabur Gas Pipeline, is worth an estimated $250m and will transport gas from Genel’s fields near Erbil towards the Turkish border.

The gas treatment plant is part of the Miran Gas Field Development is also estimated to be worth $250m.

 It has seen significant delays.

 Front end engineering design (feed) for the project was completed in 2015 and commercial bids from engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractors were submitted in September of that year.

Petrofac and Chicago Bridge and Iron were frontrunners but the contract was never awarded.

Genel’s troubles climaxed last summer when it was abandoned by two of its founders.

Former BP CEO Tony Hayward stepped down from his position as the company’s chairman and British-born financier Nat Rothschild quit the company’s board.

Since their departure the company’s share price has risen after an independent resource assessment at its Miran and Bina Bawi gas fields in Kurdistan revealed 40 per cent more gas reserves than previously thought.

This positive review of the company’s gas reserves could help Genel push forward with these two projects, that must see progress if the company wants to keep its current GLA with the KRG.