UPDATE 1 26/10/11: Following the report below Vallares has today issued a statement to the market (via Schwan Zulal):
“In response to recent speculation in the media, Vallares wishes to clarify that it has never been approached by RAK Petroleum Public Company Limited or any parties associated with the company regarding the purchase of RAK Petroleum’s assets.”
Tony Hayward has stirred the pot a week ahead of DNO’s shareholder vote on acquiring the UAE’s RAK Petroleum, mooting Genel Energy’s interest in buying the Norwegian company.
“Everyone in the industry would say the same as I: the assets of DNO International are much more interesting than RAK Petroleum,” Hayward said in an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Finansavisen.
“Just now we must await the results of this merger, but it’s clear that DNO International could be interesting to us eventually.”
The first company to enter post-war Kurdistan, DNO holds a production sharing agreement for the development of the Tawke field in Iraqi Kurdistan, and exploration licences for the Dohuk and Erbil concessions. The company is also expanding into Tunisia.
According to Reuters, Finansavisen said Hayward left no doubt that DNO was “absolutely something that Genel Energy could buy at some point.”
DNO is awaiting shareholder approval on 1 November to buy RAK for $250 million in cash and shares, in a deal which is designed to bring DNO’s Kurdish oil licences together with RAK’s track record in exploration.
The former Chairman of DNO, Berge Gerdt Larsen, is mounting the opposition of Petrolia Invest, a private equity firm, to the RAK deal. Larsen has seen all his business connections with DNO severed by the firm after exiting the company.
