Iraq’s state-owned North Oil Company has succeeded in boosting oil production at the Qayara heavy oil field to 30,000 barrels a day (b/d), two years after the field was retaken from Islamic State militants, the oil ministry said on Wednesday 26 September.

“The resumption of the production of the Qayara oil field in Nineveh province reached the rate of 30,000 b/d after the comprehensive reconstruction of damaged wells, structures and pipes,” the Oil Ministry said in a statement.

Minister of Oil Jabbar al-Luaibi added that his office has developed an ambitious plan to double the field’s output to 60,000 b/d by end of 2018.

The field was awarded to Angola’s Sonangol in Iraq’s licensing round in 2009 along with the Najmah field. It signed two technical service contracts to develop a combined 230,000 b/d of capacity.

However, the company declared force majeure to both in 2013 after a series of attacks. The security situation worsened a year later with Islamic State militants seizing huge swathes of territory across the north and west of Iraq, taking over the fields and their surrounding territories. Iraqi forces retook control of the fields in late-2016 although the militants set more than a dozen wells on fire as they retreated.

Despite the resumption of crude oil production, Sonangol has not signalled any intention to return to the field.

Most of its crude is used at the nearby 20,000 b/d Qayara refinery to produce bitumen, which resumed operations last year after being suspended due to the security situation.