During DNO’s Q2 2026 earnings call, Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani underlined that the Kurdistan Region is very important to the Norwegian oil company.

“We have a strong presence in Kurdistan. We have great working relationships with the Kurdistan Regional Government, and we are proud of our history of our relationship with them, and that allows us to have the confidence and the support to keep going,” he said.

DNO’s net production in the Kurdistan Region fell from 39,600 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in Q1 2026 to just 273 boepd in Q2 2026 after the company halted production as a precautionary safety measure following U.S.-Israeli air strikes against Iran in late February.

DNO restarted limited field operations at the Tawke license on April 9 with the resumption of workovers on existing wells and the relaunch of the previously announced eight-well drilling campaign. DNO initiated production from the Tawke field on June 28 and from the Peshkabir field on July 11.

“And this is not the first time. When ISIS came into northern Iraq, and they came very close to our operation, all the other companies shut down and left. In fact, the UK government instructed British citizens to leave, as did the U.S. government. But DNO stayed, and we produced. And during that period, we were not paid very much,” Mossavar-Rahmani said.

“But it was important for us to be a good corporate citizen and to be there for Kurdistan at a very difficult moment when millions of refugees had come into the country. Kurdistan’s financial support from Baghdad was cut, and we felt we needed to be supportive and be in Kurdistan at bad times as well as in good times. That mindset continues. Both then and now, we remain committed to the operation of Kurdistan.

“But we are able to do it because of our size and our diversity and our history there and our relationships with the people of Kurdistan, the government of Kurdistan, and the Ministry of Natural Resources there. So we feel that they have our back, we have their back, and we are going to keep going, and hopefully, the situation in the Middle East will resolve itself.”