Dana Jumps Most In 8 Years After Egypt Payment

Dana Gas, a producer of natural gas in the Middle East, rose the most in eight years after the company received $53 million in dues from the Egyptian government.

The stock surged 14.7 per cent, the most since Dec. 2005, to 86 fils at 1:43 p.m. in the United Arab Emirates. More than 303 million shares traded in 8.7 times the three-month average daily volume. Egypt has paid Dana $130 million this year of a total $330 million owed, according to a statement to Abu Dhabi bourse. Dana led a 0.8 per cent advance on the benchmark gauge, which rose for a fifth day.

Egypt has delayed payments for energy supplies following a 2011 uprising as it seeks to stabilize its economy. The most-populous Arab country has struggled to meet fuel demand after local gas output slowed, putting pressure on the government’s price-cap policy and leaving it with growing debts to producers. Dana, based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, restructured about $1 billion of Islamic bonds a year ago because of remittance holdups caused by political unrest in Egypt and Iraq.

“This is good news as they had this problem in both Kurdistan and Egypt,” Montasser Khelifi, a senior manager at Dubai-based Quantum Investment Bank Ltd, said by phone today. Dana made a good profit but wasn’t converting it into cash due to the payment delays, Khelifi said.