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DUBAI: UAE energy firm Dana Gas, one of the largest investors in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, said the British High Court had ordered the Kurdish regional government to pay Dana’s consortium $100 million within 14 days.
The decision reinforces a December 2014 ruling by a London arbitration court which made the same demand of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) with a 30-day deadline, Dana said in a bourse statement.
Its consortium, which also consists of the UAE’s Crescent Petroleum, Austria’s OMV and Hungarian oil and gas group MOL, filed an arbitration case in London in October 2013, seeking to confirm its contract rights and to obtain payment for production.
Dana Gas said it then filed the case with Britain’s High Court after failing to receive payments.
The Kurdistan region’s Ministry of Natural Resources said the court order did not relate to the “substantive merits” of the arbitration with Dana Gas, vowing to pursue counter-claims against the company, which it estimated at $3 billion.
It said Dana Gas and its affiliates had failed to honor their obligations.
The autonomous region has been suffering an acute economic crisis since Baghdad cut its share of the budget in early 2014, rendering it unable to pay international oil companies’ dues.
The crunch was compounded by a drop in oil prices and the war against Daesh.
The ministry said: “Regrettably, rather than working constructively with the KRG to find a way forward in the light of the prevailing circumstances as other international oil companies have done, Dana maintained its aggressive stance and pursued its application to the court.”
“The KRG will continue vigorously to pursue its claims for damages and other relief against the claimants in all appropriate fora.”