OSLO--DNO ASA (DNO.OS) said Thursday it has been given the green light to independently seek international buyers for the crude it produces in the Iraqi region of Kurdistan, potentially boosting its prices if political and legal obstacles can be overcome.

"Everyone wants to buy oil at the right price. If the price is right and with good quality, the buyers will line up from here to Houston," DNO Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.

The Oslo-listed oil producer, with operations in the Middle East and North Africa, said the Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG, had given it permission to look for international buyers for its oil, which can be shipped by pipeline from Kurdistan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, where tankers can carry it worldwide.

"It's very important," said Mr. Mossavar-Rahmani. "The situation for us as a company [in Kurdistan] is normalizing, with time, more and more."

Mr. Mossavar-Rahmani said the biggest obstacle is that Kurdistan is landlocked and doesn't have its own ports, so it has to rely on other countries for access to international markets. DNO could potentially move out between 120,000 barrels a day and 130,000 barrels a day from Kurdistan, he added.

"The ability to sell our oil to whoever we think is the best possible buyer, at the best possible price, is a right we have, embedded in our contracts. And with normalization, that right will be exercised," he said.

The KRG has been shipping several oil cargoes from Turkey lately, but struggled to sell the crude amid threats from Baghdad to punish buyers with legal action and exclusion from southern Iraq's substantial oil sales. The U.S., which favors a unified Iraq, has also warned buyers of legal risks.

"This doesn't solve those problems. It's worse for DNO to be in dispute with the U.S. and the Iraqi government than it is for the KRG. These obstacles must be overcome," said Arctic Securities analyst Henrik Madsen. "Stable exports and payments aren't exactly right around the corner, but this is a small step in the right direction."

DNO acknowledged that there are still political and legal challenges to exporting oil from Kurdistan, but said DNO would get a significant premium by selling its Kurdish oil on international markets. The company said it would typically sell Kurdish barrels locally for $55 per barrel to $60 per barrel.

"We certainly know it will be a much higher price than into the local market, probably in the order of $30 to $35 per barrel," Mr. Mossavar-Rahmani said. "We will be a lot closer to international prices."

The company said 2.2 million barrels of oil were exported to Turkey in the second quarter from its main asset, the Tawke field in Kurdistan, but no revenues had been recorded from those volumes.

-Write to Kjetil Malkenes Hovland at kjetilmalkenes.hovland@wsj.com

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