MOL to pay for 2009 work program at Iraq gas field with shares or shares and cash

Budapest Business Journal

Thursday 9:46, September 10th, 2009

Hungarian oil and gas company MOL said it would finance its share of the 2009 work program at a gas field in the Kurdistan region of Iraq either fully with treasury shares or with treasury shares and cash.

“Depending on the share price developments on the stock market MOL will choose between share and cash financing,” MOL said.

MOL will transfer the 51,090 MOL shares in equal part to Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum, the other owners of the Pearl Petroleum Company which holds the rights to the field, by September 15, 2009, and it may sell up to 80,000 MOL shares by October 15, 2009.

ING Bank and OTP Bank have been commissioned to carry out the transactions.

MOL said earlier it acquired a 10% stake in the Pearl Petroleum Company from Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum in May. MOL paid for the stake with shares, giving the owners each a 3% stake in MOL.

MOL's Austrian peer OMV also purchased a 10% stake in Pearl Petroleum from Crescent Petroleum and Dana Gas in a separate transaction in May. Both companies are members of the Nabucco consortium which aims to build a pipeline to deliver gas from central Asia to Europe, reducing the region's energy dependence on Russia. (MTI – Econews)