ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—Kurdistan’s Minister of Natural Resources, Ashti Hawrami, has dismissed as “inaccurate and misleading” claims by Dana Gas that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) owes the company millions of dollars in overdue payments.
“The statements made in the press briefing are materially inaccurate and incomplete,” says Mr. Hawrami in a letter sent to Dana Gas managing director, Majid Hamid Jafar.
A Reuters report on September 26 said that the KRG owed Dana Gas $380-390 million in payments in return for fuel supplied to the autonomous region.
“The KRG does not owe Dana Gas the sum referenced or any other sum, and the statement that the sums are “overdue” from the KRG is inaccurate and misleading to investors,” reads Mr. Hawrami’s letter, an exclusive copy of which was obtained by Rudaw.
Dana Gas has been operating in the Kurdistan Region since 2007.
According to the Reuters report, because of delay in payments in Kurdistan and Egypt, “Dana Gas become the first United Arab Emirates company to miss a bond redemption when it matured late last year,”
The Kurdish Natural Resources Minister however, says the company’s action is “a breach of confidentiality duties owed by Dana Gas to the KRG,”
“The ongoing breaches of the commitments owed by Dana Gas and its affiliates to the KRG have resulted in significant (and increasing) damage to the KRG,” says Mr. Hawrami’s letter.
We require, he says, that Dana Gas desist from such breaches in the future.
On Thursday, Goran Azad, an MP from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and former member of the parliamentary Oil and Gas Committee told Rudaw TV, “We have got documents that says it’s Dana Gas that has not fulfilled its commitments to the KRG and that it’s Dana Gas that owes compensations to the Kurdish government.”
Reuters reported that “The Abu Dhabi-listed company completed repairs to its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) facility at the Khor Mor field in Kurdistan in mid July, but it has not restarted production because no buyers have contracted supplies from it yet.”
But the Kurdish minister says, “It is Dana Gas and its affiliates that owe the KRG significant sums, not the other way around,”
Mr. Hawrami’s letter goes on to say that to compensate losses caused by Dana Gas’s actions, “the KRG will retain the proceeds of condensate sales to protect its entitlement to adequate compensation.”
Rich with billions of barrels of untapped oil and natural gas, the Kurdistan Region has become an attractive spot for many international oil giants, chief among them Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Total.
