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Dana steps on the gas, back in black in Q3

ABU DHABI — Dana Gas returned to profit during the third quarter, posting a profit of Dh33 million on lower costs and increased production.

Last year, the oil and gas firm saw a loss of Dh79 million during the same period a year ago.

The company wrote off Dh15 million in the quarter due to unsuccessful explorations, compared with a similar impairment of Dh110 million in the same quarter of last year, according to a statement.

“Dana Gas expects to earn a profit for the full year, in line with its results for the first three quarters,” Chief Executive Officer Ahmed Al Arbeed said in an interview. “This year out of eight wells in Egypt we found six producing ones and two were dry, which is a higher than average discovery rate.”

The company’s shares rose by 0.77 per cent on Wednesday.

Asked about the company’s fourth quarter earnings, Arbeed said that the outlook was “positive” and that a final decision on the farming out of 20 to 30 per cent of its Egypt assets will be made by the end of this year.

Overall, Dana’s oil and gas output increased by 24 per cent during the third quarter compared to the same time last year, it said.

Dana’s operations in Egypt continue to deliver strong results, producing 3.9 million barrels of oil equivalent during third quarter this year, a 15 per cent increase compared to the same period last year. This included production from the Sharabas and Faraskur fields, which were brought on stream in August 2010 via the El Wastani gas plant, the statement added.

Dana also announced two new gas discoveries in the Nile Delta in Egypt.

The first is West Ward Delta-1, which tested at 12.9 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscfpd) of gas from the Kafr El Sheikh formation, the statement said.

The preliminary estimate of mean recoverable reserves from this field is in the range of 10 billion to 17 billion standard cubic feet of gas, it added. The second discovery is Salma Delta North-1 which tested at 16.1 MMscfpd plus 561 barrels per day of condensate.

haseeb@khaleejtimes.com