UAE's Dana Gas makes new Egypt gas discoveries

A company statement said the finds were at the Sharabas-1 and Sama-1 wells in the Nile Delta region but did not give a specific date for the start of commercial production from the wells.

"The Sharabas-1 and Sama-1 discoveries will boost Dana Gas' production and profitability, and will take us closer to achieving our target production of 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by the end of the year; a target that we are already well on the way to achieve," Chief Executive Ahmed al-Arbeed said in the statement.

The Sharabas-1 discovery, which has estimated reserves of about 28 billion cubic feet gas plus the associated condensate, tested at 7 million standard cubic feet per day of gas with 198 barrels per day of condensate, it said.

The Sama-1 discovery tested at 13 million cubic feet per day of dry gas, it said. The estimated reserves for this find are about 48 billion cubic feet of gas and it has the potential to produce about 20 million cubic feet per day, it added.

Dana Gas, which relies on Egypt for the bulk of its income, said last year that it planned to invest about $500 million in Egypt and Iraq's Kurdish region in 2009 to boost natural gas output.

(Reporting by Inal Ersan, Editing by Dean Yates)