Regular payments have given DNO the confidence to resume investment in Kurdistan and recent oil price rises should see its monthly income rise considerably. But as with other key IOCs, the firm faces a challenging operational environment and all have scaled back their production plans.

Norwegian independent DNO sought to paint a bullish picture of its operations in Iraqi Kurdistan during its Q1 2016 conference call on 4 May. However, while pledging to increase output from its Tawke field by 10,000 b/d in 2016, this merely brings it back up to the 2015 average of 135,000 b/d. (CONTINUED - 1737 WORDS)