Dana Gas receives $44m from Kurdistan ops

09/07/2018 07:17 AST

Dana Gas, a leading natural gas company, has received $43.75 million in the first half of 2018 as dividends from Pearl Petroleum Company for condensate and LPG sales in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).

This includes a $7 million payment for the month of June, a company statement said. Pearl Petroleum is a consortium, comprised of five oil and gas companies, focused on exploration and production of natural gas and liquids assets in the KRI, in which Dana Gas is a 35 per cent shareholder and the joint operator.

This is separate from cash-flow kept within Pearl to sustain current operations, and from the Company’s $140million allocated for further investment and development of the fields, in accordance with the settlement agreement signed in August 2017 with the KRG. Since the settlement agreement signed by Pearl Petroleum with the KRG, all payments have been received in a timely manner in KRI without any current outstanding receivables.

Dana Gas’ net share of production in the KRI averaged 26,100 boepd of production during the first half of 2018, a slight increase on H1 2017’s output of 25,900 boepd. In addition, plans are underway to increase Pearl Petroleum’s production by 170 per cent by 2021 through the installation of two250 MMscf/d gas processing trains, adding to the two trains already in commission. This will increase the capacity to process gas and condensate from the Khor Mor field by 580 MMscf/d and 20 mbbld respectively.

The first phase of this expansion programme is the fast-track debottlenecking project of the current production facilities. The project remains on track to deliver an increase in output of 80 MMscf/d, the equivalent of approximately 25 per cent uplift, by Q3 2018 In addition, third-party financing of $25.9 million for the project has been secured and a 10-year Gas Sales Agreement with the KRG to supply and sell additional quantities of gas from the project has been signed.

As part of the first phase, a drilling programme for the appraisal and development of Khor Mor and Chemchemal will take place over the coming months, as well as workover operations of existing wells.

The expansion plan will be financed at the Pearl Petroleum level from third party financing or internal cash flow generated without any finance provided by Dana Gas, according to the statement.

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