Black Diamond Oil Co. and Rezhwan Co. have agreed to form a joint venture for a refinery in the Kurdistan region of Iraq that is scheduled to begin operations as soon as next week, the companies said in an Apr. 13 release.
The refinery, situated near the Kurdish capital of Erbil will process crude Black Diamond purchases directly from above-ground reserves in Taq Taq field in central Iraq, about 50 miles east-southeast of Erbil.
Rezhwan will act as the refinery’s operator.
The gasoline-producing plant will have an initial crude oil processing capacity of 11,000 b/d, which Black Diamond plans to increase by 22,000 b/d starting in May, the company said.
With proved and probable reserves totaling 607 million bbl of an estimated 1.7 billion bbl of oil in place, Taq Taq—Kurdistan region’s largest oil-producing field—produced 80,000-100,000 b/d of crude, all of which currently is transported by truck, according to field operator Genel Energy PLC (OGJ Online, Mar. 13, 2013).
Production from Taq Taq averaged 75,500 b/d in 2012 vs. 66,000 b/d in 2011.
With a projected total depth of 5,400 m, the TT-22 Taq Taq deep exploratory well is due to spud shortly, Genel Energy said.
But with a gross unrisked resource of 250 million bbl of oil equivalent still in Jurassic and Triassic reservoirs, Genel Energy said it believes ultimate recovery from Taq Taq could reach 1 billion bbl.
