Dana Gas, a leading regional natural gas company in the Middle East, has received $40 million from the Egyptian government towards paying down its receivables.

With this payment, the Emirati company has till date received a total of $88.8 million from Egypt during 2018, said a statement from the company.

A leading player in the region, Dana Gas has exploration and production assets in Egypt, Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) and UAE, with 2P reserves exceeding one billion boe and average production of 67,600 boepd in 2017, it stated.

CEO Dr Patrick Allman-Ward said: "We are pleased to have received this $40 million payment from the Egyptian Government which takes our total receipts to nearly $90 million for the first half of the year."

"It is a timely cash boost and highlights the Government’s publicly stated commitment to substantially reduce the petroleum companies’ receivables during 2018," stated the top official.

Allman-Ward said the monies will enable Dana to proceed with important growth initiatives such as drilling Balsam-8 in its development lease onshore the Nile Delta, which should provide incremental production to fill our onshore facilities to its capacity.

"Our primary focus remains on increasing production and on drilling our first offshore well in Block 6, due to commence in early 2019. Block-6 is highly prospective and contains several material prospects with multi-Tcf potential," he added.

Dana Gas had first entered Egypt in 2007 and became the fifth largest gas producer in the country.-TradeArabia News Service