The UK’s Gulf Keystone has discovered oil in the upper sections of its Shaikan-1 exploration well in Kurdistan.

The company says the discovery is in addition to the potential 2-4 billion barrels of oil in the wider Shaikan Block, after completing a 2D seismic survey.

It says the discovery of the new oil zone improves the possibility of finding additional light oil in an area of 700 metres to 1 kilometre deep, that still has to be drilled.  

The firm says the 2-4 billion barrel reservoir figure was estimated by its technical staff after analysing 171km of seismic studies from an overall block area of 283 sq km.