Dana Gas gets $44.3M payment from Egypt

ABU DHABI - 31 December 2018: Dana Gas, the Middle East’s largest regional private sector natural gas company, has received an additional payment of $44.3 million from its operations in Egypt, Trade Arabia reported Sunday.

This payment, done on December 29, is made up of an additional $35 million industry payment from the government and $9.3 million from the sale of 157,350 barrels of El Wastani condensate, with both payments in US dollars.

The company has now received two payments worth an equivalent of $55 million in December from the Egyptian government towards overdue receivables.

The shipment of El Wastani condensate is the fifth shipment of condensate sales in 2018, resulting in total collections of $54 million from condensate shipments from Egypt in 2018, Dana Gas said.

Total receipts from Egypt have reached $199 million year-to-date compared to $164 million in 2017, an increase of 21% year-on-year.

Patrick Allman-Ward, chief executive at Dana Gas, said the $55m in payment would enable the company to push ahead with final preparations on drilling the first offshore deep-water exploration well in the Block 5 North El Arish concession area early next year.

"This is the first of several high potential prospects in the block. We are encouraged by the government’s willingness to make payments against their outstanding receivables before the year-end and we hope this will carry through into 2019 to clear the outstanding balance entirely as per the agreement,” he said.