CALGARY, Alberta, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- Henry Legarre, chief operating officer at Oryx Petroleum, said his company was encouraged by results of drilling operations in the Kurdish north of Iraq.
Oryx, which has headquarters in Alberta, Canada, said it completed drilling an exploration well in the Banan prospect in the Kurdish region of Iraq. The company said a third-party survey of the prospect in 2013 put the prospective oil resources at 102 million barrels of oil.
Its Demir Dagh appraisal well in the region should be completed during the second quarter of 2014.
"Observations during drilling of all wells on the Demir Dagh structure continue to be encouraging," Legarre said in a statement Monday.
Both wells are in the Hawler license area in the Kurdish north.
The Korean National Oil Corp., a minority partner for Oryx at Hawler, announced in March it made an oil discovery at the site. More work was needed to determine the reserve potential. KNOC said it yielded 10,000 barrels of oil per day during initial testing.
The central and Kurdish governments in Iraq are at odds over who controls what aspects of the energy sector.
