Sharjah: Sharjah-based energy company Dana Gas said on Thursday it is owed $720 million in back payments by the governments of Egypt and Kurdistan for the natural gas it produced in those countries.

“In Egypt, $290 million of invoices have not been paid, $210 million of which is overdue. In Kurdistan, $430 million has been invoiced, and the payment overdue is $390 million,” Dr. Patrick Allman-Ward told reporters here at a news conference.

Egypt owes at least $5 billion (Dh18.3 billion) to oil companies producing oil and gas on its territory, with half of it overdue. The Egyptian government, seeking to avoid public unrest, has delayed oil payments as it struggles to meet soaring energy bills caused by high subsidies on fuel products. Some of the debts were accumulated even before President Hosni Mubarak was ousted.

Allman-Ward said they are engaging with the respective governments at all levels to get their back payments. The gas produced by Dana Gas in Egypt and Kurdistan is sold locally.

He said they have proposed to the Egyptian government that Dana Gas is willing to receive “Sixty-five per cent of its receivables in Egyptian pounds as a temporary measure to help the government.” This way, he said, the government can save money in hard currency.

Furthermore, Allman-Ward said they have proposed to the government a 25 per cent increase in their overall gas production capacity in Egypt which can be sold on the market “in order to agree and accelerate the repayment programme.”

He said for 2013, Dana Gas is looking at an average production volume of about 63,000 barrels of oil equivalent.

Dana Gas reported a fiscal second quarter net profit of Dh100 million. It made a net profit of Dh241 million in the first quarter of 2013, up 17 per cent from a year ago.

For the first six months this year, the company’s net profit was Dh341 million. Its cash balance, as of June 30, stood at Dh792 million, higher than Dh601 million at the end of December.

Dana Gas previously said its total investment in Egypt has exceeded $1.8 billion and the company had achieved a record production this year in Egypt of 39,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

“In Kurdistan, our total investment is $1.1 billion, of which we have already recovered $730 million,” Azfar Aboobakar, Head of Financial Control & Reporting told Gulf News on the sidelines of the news conference.