Dubai contractor Drake & Scull International (DSI) expects to hear from Saudi Aramco about settling nearly half of outstanding payments owed for its work on Riyadh’s King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre, Invest-Gate reports.

The company started talks last month about existing debt and seeking financial backing for new projects.

On Sunday, DSI’s shares slumped nearly 10% after it said shareholders expressed no interest in a new share issue and had approved increasing writeoffs by up to AED 722 mn, in addition to a previously planned capital reduction of AED 992 million, because of potentially unrecoverable receivables, according to Reuters.

Its shares picked up on Monday, rising 2.5% to AED 0.409.

The company has five claims outstanding with Saudi Aramco, totalling SAR 2.3 bn, and hopes to soon settle SAR 1.05 bn of them.