Dana Gas PJSC, the Middle East's largest regional private sector natural gas company, has received an additional payment of $44.3 million (AED 162.4m) in US dollars from its operations in Egypt. This payment is made up of an additional $35 million industry payment from the government and $9.3 million from the sale of 157,350 barrels of El Wastani condensate, with both payments in US dollars.

The Company has now received two payments worth an equivalent of $55 million (AED 202m) in December from the Egyptian government towards overdue receivables. The shipment of El Wastani condensate is the fifth shipment of condensate sales in 2018, resulting in total collections of $54million from condensate shipments from Egypt in 2018.

Total receipts from Egypt has reached $199 million (AED 729m) year to date compared to $164 million (AED 600m) in 2017, an increase of 21% year-on-year. The level of the Company's receivables in Egypt are now at its lowest since 2011, though the Company is hoping for further improvement in payments so as to reduce the level to zero as agreed.

Dr Patrick Allman-Ward, CEO, Dana Gas, said:
"Receiving US$55 million in December from the Egyptian government is positive for Dana Gas as it enables us to complete our final preparations to drill our first offshore deepwater exploration well in the Block 6 North El Arish Concession Area early in 2019. This is the first of several high potential prospects in the block. We are encouraged by the government's willingness to make payments against their outstanding receivables before the year-end and we hope this will carry through into 2019 to clear the outstanding balance entirely as per the agreement."

The Company recently announced that as a result of the ramp up of production from debottlenecking project in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the completion of the Balsam-8 well in Egypt, its group production reached 70,000 barrels of oil per day (boepd). This represents a 12.4% increase compared to the Company's 9M 2018 average of 62,250 boepd.