UAE based Dana Gas held its Annual General Assembly (AGM) on Wednesday, 20th April 2011 wherein approval was given for the board of director’s report on the company’s activities and financial position for the financial 2010.
In his statement to those in attendance, Dana Gas’ chairman, Hamid Jafar explained that despite the challenging economic conditions experienced in 2010, the company achieved commendable performance for the year, and is continually exploring avenues to enhance shareholder value by considering new opportunities for income generation, as well as the development of existing assets.
“Such strong growth reflects the economic fundamentals driving regional gas demand, particularly progressive substitution away from liquid petroleum products, as well as increasing demand for industry and electricity generation,” he said.
“These realities underpin the original vision of our founders to create a MENASA Region gas champion in Dana Gas, and we remain true to that vision.”
In his statement to the AGM, Ahmad Al Arbeed, chief executive officer said: “Dana Gas’ operational progress during 2010 has continued its enviable track record, which both reflects the high quality of our hydrocarbon assets and is also a testament to the skills and commitment of our professional staff who continue to deliver first class results across our business units. During the last financial year, we increased production across the group by
31% to 55,500 boepd and we increased our profits by 80% to AED 158 million (US$43million).”
Updating the AGM on Dana Gas’ operations in Egypt and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Sharjah, Al Arbeed said: “We have increased our proved reserves in Egypt by 90% to 89 MMboe. In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq we have achieved an impressive 76% increase in production, driven by consistent production of gas throughout the year, with continuous deliveries to two power stations. In Sharjah we are moving ahead with the development of the Zora Field.”
On the ongoing issue of the UAE Gas Project, Jafar said, in his statement to the AGM, “Our UAE Gas Project to process and transport imported gas continues to await the commencement of regular gas supplies from NIOC. While the construction and interconnection of our facilities have long been successfully completed, regular gas supplies have yet to commence.
Meanwhile, in order to protect Dana Gas’ contractual rights, our associate Crescent Petroleum continues to seek a legal ruling on the binding 25 year gas supply contract with NIOC through international arbitration, and expects an enforceable decision by the Tribunal in less than a year.”
In terms of outlook for 2011 for Dana Gas’ projects, Al Arbeed said: “In Egypt, we plan to increase production by more than 20% during 2011, followed by a similar planned increase in 2012, when our third gas processing plant comes on stream. In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, our expansion plans are to fill the capacity of our gas processing plant during 2011”.
Al Arbeed concluded: “We look forward to 2011, while our prime focus will remain on growing our cash flows and maximising shareholder value, we plan to steadily build our asset base, albeit prudently managing our financial resources in light of regional and global circumstances”.
