Losses prompt Dana Gas UAE to sell its assets in Egypt

Dana Gas has authorized the investment bank Theodore Pickering Holt & Co. to advise it on the sale of its badets in Egypt worth more than $ 500 million, as the company focuses more and more on its activities in Iraqi Kurdistan, said two sources close to the case.
One of the exporters said that the Abu Dhabi-listed energy company, with its main badets in Egypt and the Kurdistan region of Iraq, was considering an alternative listing in London and was focusing on a geographic area likely to be affected. to interest its future investors.
Dana Gas's exploration and production badets in Egypt are land badets located in the Nile Delta region, with the exception of Sector VI of the Eastern Mediterranean. In May, the company began drilling at the Mirak-1 berth in Sector VI, claiming that it could contain up to 4 trillion cubic feet of gasoline.
Dana said Sunday in a notice on the stock exchange that the drilling had not resulted in the discovery of gas in commercial quantities and that the well had therefore been closed and left, but added that its activities in Egypt were continuing normally.
The first source indicated that the gas producer had started marketing its badets in Egypt in recent weeks and that it had aroused market interest, but there was no buyer yet, adding that the value of badets "exceeded $ 500 million". The source said the decision to sell badets in Egypt was "strategic," with Dana wanting to focus its resources on investments in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, where investment needs are high and growth potential is high. In a second opinion on the stock market Sunday, Dana said an independent report revealed that the fields in which Dana holds stakes in the Kurdistan region include "the largest gas reserves in Iraq." Pearl Petroleum, a consortium with a majority stake in Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum, plans to increase gas production from the Khorormur deposit in the region to 650 million standard cubic feet per day by 2022 and produce 900 million cubic meters. cubic feet a day by 2023, said Dana.
Dana, with a cash balance of $ 442 million at the end of the first quarter, caused an upheaval in the Islamic finance sector in 2017 when he stopped paying $ 700 million of sukuk, qualifying it then illegal from United Arab Emirates.
After a long and complex legal dispute, the company entered into a restructuring agreement with its creditors last May.