Dana Gas PJSC, the Middle East’s leading natural gas company, has achieved a net profit of US$14mn, 27 per cent higher on year-on-year (Y-O-Y) basis, said the company in its Q1 2018 financial results
Commenting on the financial result, Dr Patrick Allman-Ward, CEO of Dana Gas, said, “The Q1 2018 saw Dana Gas continue to perform solidly from both a financial and operational perspective. We continue to collect payments regularly in the KRI and our cash reserves increased further to US$636mn.”
“On the operations front, we signed a gas sales agreement with the KRG for the incremental production from the debottlenecking project for which we have secured financing and are making good progress to increase our output by 20 per cent this year,” Allman-Ward added.
“We have also submitted our field development plans to the Ministry of Natural Resources for the next phase of capacity expansion by 500mn scf per day,” he further noted.
According to the company, the increase in net profit was mainly due to better-realised prices and the reversal of accruals made by Pearl Petroleum for certain operating charges in prior years which are no longer required following the positive arbitration settlement with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Production and Operations
In the Q1 2018, average production was decreased to 65,000 boepd, down seven per cent from 69,900 boepd in Q1 2017. Egypt’s quarterly production was 10 per cent lower at 36,800 boepd. KRI output was flat at 26,300 boepd vis-à-vis Q1 2017 and the UAE’s Zora Gas field produced 1,400 boepd in the first quarter as compared to 1,800 boepd in Q1 2017.
In Egypt, the company has drilled three wells and completed an extensive well workover which brings this phase of the drilling programme to a close. Two of the three wells have been successes.
The company also undertook to workover a South Faraskur well, which resulted in an additional production of four million scf per day. Regarding Block 6, progress is being made in terms of drilling the company’s first offshore well in early 2019.
