Egypt is a hot postcode right now,” Patrick Allman-Ward, CEO of UAE-based Dana Gas told reporters at the World Energy Congress (WEC) in September. Dana is on the lookout for potential buyers for its Egyptian acreage which it put up for sale in July in the hope of raising $500mn (MEES, 2 August). “If there is a time to start doing some portfolio management, now is a very good time to do it,” Mr Allman-Ward says.
Why Dana would want to put all its eggs in the KRG basket is less clear: it is only two years since it settled a major legal dispute with Iraqi Kurdistan (MEES, 1 September 2017) and the region continues to present major geopolitical risk – much more so than Egypt. Quitting Egypt would also leave Dana with a near-identical portfolio to parent company Crescent Petroleum – a 35% stake in the Pearl consortium which operates the KRG’s 400mn cfd Khor Mor gas field (MEES, 4 October) – calling into question the point of its continued existence as a separate company. (CONTINUED - 573 WORDS)
