LONDON (Alliance News) - Dragon Oil PLC Friday posted a fall in pretax profit for its first half, hit by the fall in crude oil prices, as its takeover by Emirates National Oil Company LLC was declared unconditional, and it has subsequently begun the process of delisting.
On Sunday, ENOC revised the price of its original offer for Dragon Oil to 800 pence, from its originally bid of 750 pence, valuing the shares that it does not already own in Drag at GBP1.8 billion. On Thursday, the company said it had received valid acceptances in relation to the offer of 118.4 million shares, or 24.0% of the company's current issued share capital and around 51.5% of the voting rights held by independent shareholders.
As a result, thresholds have been met under the listing rules of the Irish Stock Exchange to effect a delisting, and ENOC has requested Dragon Oil begin the delisting process immediately. It expects the delisting to take effect September 7. It noted that the cancellation of trading of Dragon Shares will significantly reduce the liquidity and marketability of any shares ENOC has not acquired.
The oil and gas company that operates the Cheleken Contract Area offshore Turkmenistan reported a pretax profit of USD182.8 million for the half year to end-June, down from USD394.0 million a year before, as revenue declined to USD449.9 million from USD547.0 million, but cost of sales rose to USD242.4 million from USD120.6 million.
Despite seeing higher gross production in the half year compared to the previous year, the significant drop in crude oil prices hit the company's results. It had average gross product rate of around 92,060 barrels of oil per day in the first half, compared to 73,440 barrels of oil per day in the previous year.
Dragon Oil did not propose an interim dividend. In the previous year it paid an interim dividend of 20.00 cents.
The company reiterated its outlook for 2015, continuing to expect average production growth of around 15%, and an exit rate of 100,000 barrels of oil per day. It expects to maintain a level of 100,000 barrels of oil per day average gross production for a minimum of five years from 2016.
"We surpassed the 100,000 barrels of oil per day mark on 9 June 2015 - an achievement of which, we, the team at Dragon Oil, are very proud of. Since then, we are hovering around that rate. Work on our exploration assets progresses in line with programmes agreed with our respective partners and host governments," said Chief Executive Officer Abdul Jaleel Al Khalifa in a statement.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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