UAE's Dana Gas 2012 net profit rises 20%

Dana Gas, the Abu Dhabi-listed energy firm which defaulted on an Islamic bond, said on Sunday its full-year net profit for 2012 rose 20 percent on the back of higher oil prices and lower costs.

Dana's 2012 net profit rose to US$165m from the US$138m it posted in 2011, the company said in a statement.

The company, hit by delays on payments for its supplies of natural gas to Egypt and Iraq's Kurdistan region, reached an agreement with creditors in December to amend terms of a US$920m Islamic bond, which it had failed to pay at maturity in October.

"With the agreement with the sukuk-holders announced, the focus now is on receivables collection, boosting the management team, and realising the value of the assets through an international listing," Crescent CEO Majid Jafar, who is also a board member of Dana, told Reuters by phone.

Dana, in which Crescent Petroleum has a 20 percent stake, said it collected US$301m from its share of receivables in Egypt and Kurdistan region of Iraq in 2012.

The company's cash balance rose by 47 percent to US$165m by the end of last year, while total assets reached US$3.5bn at the end of Dec.

Dana Gas, which has operations in the UAE, Egypt and Kurdistan, made quarterly profit of AED114m, according to Reuters calculations. It had profit of AED147m in the year-ago period.

"We are now preparing to develop our three recent discoveries in Egypt and the Zora offshore gas field in theUAE. These projects will enable us to boost the growth that our operations have achieved consistently over the past seven years," said Rashid Al-Jarwan, executive director and acting CEO of Dana Gas.

Dana shares now trade up 2 percent at AED0.5.