DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Dubai energy company Dragon Oil said Tuesday it signed a production sharing contract with the Afghan government for two reserve areas in the country.
Dragon said Tuesday it would serve as the operator of the Sanduqli block. Its partners at The Turkish Petroleum Corp. will operate the Mazar-i-Sharif area. Both measures were secured through an exploration and production sharing contract signed with the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.
Both reserve areas are near the northern Afghan border with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
"We are excited about this opportunity to work in Afghanistan and the prospects of these two blocks," Dragon Oil Chief Executive Officer Abdul Jaleel al-Khalifa said in a statement Tuesday.
Dragon offered no predictions of the reserve potential in the Afghan blocks. No time frame for development was announced.
The CIA World Factbook said Afghanistan had 87 million barrels of proven oil reserves as of January 2012.
