Chevron’s regional upstream VP Ian MacDonald tells MEES that the firm has relinquished its Rovi Block in the KRG. He says the decision was purely geological: Chevron was very encouraged by the results at the neighboring Sarta block but didn’t feel it could make a commercial discovery at Rovi.

The firm would have made the same decision regardless of the oil price, he says. Rovi is one of a number of blocks that a 1 December MNR report shows are in the process of being relinquished. Others include Repsol’s Piramagrun and Qala Dze, DNO’s Duhok and Mol’s Akri Bijeel, the performance of which has been massively disappointing: stuck at little more than 2,000 b/d, versus a 35,000 b/d end-2015 target set last year (MEES, 11 September). (CONTINUED - 129 WORDS)