Dragon Oil has dropped a plan to move its nominal corporate home from Ireland to Bermuda, the Financial Times reported yesterday.

The decision followed an extensive review, the oil development and production group said yesterday.

Most of the corporate domicile movement between the two countries has been going in the other direction. Several companies, including Willis Holdings, Tyco Electronics and Covidien, have moved their headquarters from Bermuda to Ireland.

Bermuda-headquartered insurance giant XL Capital also plans to move its holding company from the Cayman Islands to Dublin.

Drago Oil is 52 percent owned by Dubai's state-owned Emirates National Oil Company.

Dragon's chief executive Abdul Jaleel al Khalifa said the review had determined that "Ireland remains an attractive jurisdiction for the holding company of the group".

Dragon has its headquarters in Dubai and its activities are focused on Turkmenistan. Its shares are traded both on the London Stock Exchange and the Irish Stock Exchange.

The restructuring proposed in March 2009 would have incorporated the company in Bermuda rather than Ireland, as well as downgrading its stock market presence in Dublin to a secondary listing.

At the time, Dragon said this structure would have made future diversification more tax-efficient, adding that its Irish presence was something of a historical quirk.

However, it put the plan on hold following interest from Enoc for the minority of the company that it did not own.

This interest materialised into a bid that was eventually rejected by Dragon's other shareholders in December.