Dana Gas evacuates Khor Mor staff in Iraq's Kurdistan Region after Iran threats
Tehran has warned it will target Gulf oil and gas facilities following Israel's strike on South Pars.
Dubai-listed Dana Gas has evacuated all staff from its Khor Mor gas field in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as a precautionary measure. The move follows Iran’s threats to attack oil and gas facilities in the Gulf region in retaliation for an Israeli strike on its South Pars gas field, well-placed sources told Al-Monitor.
In a statement carried by Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency on Wednesday, Iranian authorities said five facilities in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar “will be targeted in the coming hours."
Dana Gas halted its operations at the start of the Iran conflict three weeks ago. The Khor Mor field, which provides most of the Kurdistan Region’s natural gas, has been repeatedly targeted by drones thought to be launched by Iran-backed Shiite militias.
A Dana Gas spokesperson did not respond to Al-Monitor’s request for comment.
The move came as Iraq’s Energy Ministry announced that Iranian gas flows had stopped because of what it termed “developments in the region.” This will significantly reduce power generation in the country, with about 3,100 megawatts going offline. Iraq, home to huge natural gas reserves of its own, is highly dependent on Iranian gas to operate its power plants, particularly in the south.
Iran was supplying roughly a third of Iraq’s energy needs — that is 50 million cubic meters of gas per day which generated 6,000 megawatts of electricity per day.
The South Pars field that was hit by Israel is the world’s largest natural gas field and is shared with Qatar.
Iraq has emerged as one of the worst affected by the United States’ and Israel’s joint offensive against Iran that was launched on Feb. 28. The country has been unable to export its oil ever since Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz for tanker traffic, and has since been letting ships through on an ad hoc basis subject to its prior approval.
Oil accounts for 90% of Iraq’s revenue. In a breakthrough, Baghdad reached an agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government on Tuesday to pump up to 250,000 barrels of crude through a pipeline running from the Kirkuk fields via Kurdish territory on to loading terminals in Southern Turkey.
This developing story has been updated.
