A consortium led by the United Arab Emirates’ Crescent Petroleum and Dana Gas has signed a 20-year gas sales deal with Iraq’s Kurdish region that will boost the project’s gas output by 63% in two years, the companies said March 6.

The agreement by the Pearl Petroleum consortium will “enable production and sales of an additional 250 million standard cubic feet (MMscf) per day by 2021,” a statement said.

Plans are underway to increase gas production from the Khor Mor Field to 650 MMscf per day by 2021 and 900 MMscf per day by 2022, the companies said.

The expansion plan for the Khor Mor plant is worth $700 million and will include adding two new production trains as well as drilling new wells to raise output from the current 400 MMscf a day, they said.

The Pearl consortium’s agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is to develop, produce and sell petroleum products from the Khor Mor and Chemchemal fields.

In 2013, as part of the consortium, which also includes Austria’s OMV, Hungary’s MOL and Germany’s RWE, Dana filed a case against the KRG in the London Court of Arbitration accusing it of underpaying for gas liquid production.

In August 2017, Dana and its partners reached a financial settlement which saw the Kurdish government pay $600 million immediately to the consortium, plus $400 million to invest in the development of the region.