DNO furious with OSE after shares halve in value

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The embattled Norwegian oil exploration and production company DNO has said that it is considering including moving the listing of the company's shares away from the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE), after seeing its shares halving in value within a few hours of the trading suspension being lifted.

In a statement released on its website DNO expressed it’s regret that the OSE had not extended a suspension on trading shares in the company.

“The board of DNO has submitted a letter to the board of OSE requesting that the suspension of trading the DNO shares must be maintained for a few more days until the situation caused by the notice from KRG is resolved.

“Until then the pricing of the shares will be difficult and could lead to unpredictable price variations.”

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“Despite such request from DNO and the fact that the Notice from KRG is caused by the wrongful doings by OSE, the suspension of trading the DNO shares has been lifted by OSE,” it added.

Earlier this week the KRG announced that it had suspended all of DNO’s operations in the semi-autonomous Iraqi state for a period of up to six weeks.

The dispute centres around a US$29.7 million share transaction between DNO and Genel Enerji where the Turkish company Genel took around a 5% stake in DNO.

An investigation by the OSE discovered that the KRG acted as an effective middleman through the use of a clearing account in the United Kingdom registered personally to Hawrami.

This led the OSE to accuse DNO of insider trading due to the KRG effectively becoming a DNO shareholder. Speculation was also rife both in Norway and abroad that due to the account being personal illicit personal gain could have been involved in the transaction.