Exclusive: UAE's Dana Gas hires adviser to sell assets in Egypt

LONDON / DUBAI (Reuters) – Dana Gas of the United Arab Emirates has hired Tudor Investment Bank, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH) to advise him on the sale of his Egyptian badets, to the US. worth over $ 500 million. Two sources close to the case said, while the company was focusing on its operations in Kurdistan.

The Abu Dhabi-listed energy producer – whose main badets are located in Egypt and the Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRI) – plans to list a new company in London and focus on a single geographical area could interest the future investors of the company. , said one of the sources. The sources did not wish to be identified because the information was not made public.

A spokesman for Dana Gas declined to comment, while TPH did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside of working hours.

Dana's exploration and production resources in Egypt are located on the Nile Delta coast, with the exception of Block 6 in the eastern Mediterranean.

In May, Dana began drilling at Merak Well 6 in Block 6, claiming that it could contain up to 4 trillion cubic feet of gas.

On Sunday, Dana said in a stock exchange statement that drilling had not found commercial hydrocarbons and that the well was being abandoned. He added that his activities in Egypt are continuing normally.

The gas producer has started marketing its Egyptian badets in recent weeks and, although it has sparked market interest, no buyer has yet been announced, said the first source. , adding that these badets represented "more than $ 500 million".

The decision to sell in Egypt is "strategic," Dana wants to focus its resources on investments in KRI, which have significant capital expenditures and potential for growth, the source added.

In a second statement released Sunday, Dana said that a new report, submitted to an independent audit, showed that areas in which KRI had interests in KRI could be "the largest gas fields in the world." Iraq".

Pearl Petroleum, a majority-owned consortium of Dana Gas and its subsidiary Crescent Petroleum, plans to increase gas production from the KRI field in Khor Mor to 650 MMcf per day by 2022 and 900 MMcf per day from here. 2023, said Dana.

The expansion plan, worth some $ 700 million, will include the addition of two new production trains and drilling new wells to increase production of 400 million of cubic feet per day, announced Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum in March sales contract with the Kurdistan Regional Government.

In May, Dana's CEO said Pearl Petroleum would raise funds for KRI's investments through several types of financing.

Dana's investment spending for Iraqi Kurdistan in 2019 was estimated at between $ 70 and $ 90 million, while his capital expenditures for Egypt this year would have been about $ 90 million, he said. declared at the time.

Dana Gas, which had a cash balance of $ 442 million at the end of the first quarter of this year, upset the world of Islamic finance in 2017, stopping payments of $ 700 million in sukuk, claiming that the instruments had become illegal in the United Arab Emirates.

After a long and complex legal dispute, it entered into a consensual restructuring agreement with its creditors last May.