(Adds details on production, background)
Jan 25 (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdistan-focused oil company Genel Energy Plc said on Thursday its full-year net production would fall about 34 percent, as output at its main Taq Taq oilfield dropped.
Net production averaged 35,200 barrels of oil per day (bopd) in 2017, compared with 53,300 bopd in 2016, Genel said.
Genel said in June that its Taq Taq oil field in Iraqi Kurdistan had seen lower output in 2017 but the rate of decline has slowed.
Taq Taq production averaged 18,050 bopd in 2017, while Tawke production averaged 109,050 bopd, Genel said on Thursday.
Genel, one of a handful of foreign oil companies in Iraqi Kurdistan, said combined net production for 2018 from oil producing fields Tawke and Taq Taq is expected to be close to fourth-quarter 2017 levels.
Genel’s net production averaged 32,76 bopd in the fourth quarter, with Taq Taq averaging 14,035 bopd.
Genel also said it expects to spend about $95 million to $140 million for 2018, compared to about $95 million in 2017.
Last year, the company was hit by a vote for Kurdish independence from Iraq, which the central government and western powers have opposed. Genel said then it was confident the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq will continue meeting oil export payments despite tensions with the central government following the region’s independence referendum last month.
The company also saw management changes in 2017 after two downgrades to reserves at Taq Taq, failed exploration campaigns in Africa and a sharp drop in oil prices since 2014. (Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri, Bernard Orr)