Gulf News reported that Crescent Petroleum, a key shareholder in Dana Gas is optimistic that the Sharjah based natural gas producer can reach a comfortable resolution on its USD 920 million Islamic bond maturing in October.

Badr Jafar president of Crescent said that Abu Dhabi listed Dana is also in talks with the Egyptian government to recover delayed receivables from its operations in the North African country.

Mr Jafar “As a shareholder, I believe there are discussions ongoing with the ministry for scheduled payments to recover the receivables. I’m optimistic and have a lot of faith in the professionalism and savvy of the management and board to reach a comfortable resolution with the bondholders and investors alike.”

According to its half year results, Dana started facing problems last year after anti-government protests in countries such as Egypt led to payment delays from government entities. It has also faced payment issues in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. The company was owed AED 729 million in Egypt as at June 30th 2012. They received AED 431 million from Egypt during the first 6 months of the year.

Crescent is the largest share holder in Dana with a stake of 20.1%. Dana which owns 3% stake in Hungarian group MOL has so far provided no details on how it plans to meet the upcoming Islamic bond maturity. The natural gas producer had appointed Blackstone Group and Deutsche Bank as advisers to help it weigh options for the sukuk and said it was committed to finding a consensual solution.

Source - Gulf News

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