Dragon Oil, a subsidiary of Dubai’s Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), plans to invest about $500 million next year in oil and gas assets as part of an international expansion strategy, its chief executive told Reuters.

The upstream investment arm of Dubai government-owned ENOC Group, the company aims to boost its production to 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2025 and is eyeing new opportunities in Turkmenistan, North Africa and Iraq, Ali Rashid al-Jarwan said.

“We are trying to improve our profitability, our efficiency and our sustainability and for that purpose we are continuously looking for opportunities to improve our portfolio,” al-Jarwan said in an interview on Wednesday.

“We are a cash positive company”.

Dragon Oil’s main assets abroad are in Turkmenistan’s Cheleken field, where it produces close to 90,000 bpd, al-Jarwan said.

The company also has exploration assets in Iraq, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt.

“We have a programme of acquisition to supplement our growth strategy, because our strategy indicates that we have to go to 300,000 (boepd) by 2025,” he said.

“We are looking at Africa mainly, especially North Africa.”

In Iraq, the company has oil operations in Iraq’s Southern Basra region and production has started from the Faihaa-1 well.

In Algeria, Dragon Oil is continuing with its exploration activities and hopes for commercial gas operations there to begin after 2019, al-Jarwan said. (Reuters/NAN)