The tiny Irish stock on the brink of landing 'the first' post-sanction oil deal in Iraq. Ref 'Fleet Street Letter' 12-04-04..

Done a bit more research on petrel & pan andean. They both share the same 3 directors, same address & same phone number. Pan andean is debt free where petrel made a loss. Directors own 8% of pan andean. Should we own shares in both of these? Anybody know something?

Wilbs

BBC reporting Petrel have been short listed for it's three tenders. Deals should be known by the end of August.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3879839.stm

Share price has re-acted well to the news. 12% Up on today's low and still 40 mins to go.

cunningham

lovely bit of news thanks, hopefully you will be posting that they have won at least one of the tenders before the end of august


Tokyo

just read the article very interesting, things are looking up for Petrel

here is the article

Iraq oil deals 'by end of August'
The oil is there, but so are ongoing attacks on pipelines
Iraq's interim government is expected to award the first three post-war oil production contracts by the end of August, industry sources say.

Irish firm Petrel has confirmed it has put in bids for all three contracts on offer so far, making the final lists.

However, Shell told the BBC it had declined to enter the tendering process for at least the first of the three.

The big firms are said to be put off by the small size of the current deals, and the ongoing security situation.

Jim Finn, company secretary at Petrel, told BBC News Online it had submitted its three tenders between March and mid-May.


The scope and contract format are not compatible with our aspirations for long-term risk-reward contracts
Shell
"We have tendered and we are fairly confident," he said.

Although Mr Finn said the security situation was obviously not ideal, he said Petrel continued to have both a Baghdad office and people on the ground in Iraq.

Attacks

The first three Iraqi oil projects up for grabs are for developing the Khurmala Dome field in the north of the country, the Suba-Luhais field in the south, and the smaller Hamrin field, again in the north.

Shell said it was initially interested in taking on Khurmala Dome, but turned it down because it was not happy with the terms of the offer.

"We obtained a copy of the tender but the scope and contract format are not compatible with our aspirations for long-term risk-reward contracts," said a Shell spokesman.

A spokesman for BP said it has not made a bid for any of the first three contracts.

The Khurmala project is thought to call for investment of $100m (54m), Suba-Luhais $150m and Hamrin $80m.

Many other oilfield development projects are expected to be put out to tender in due course.

Iraq has the world's second biggest oil reserves after neighbouring Saudi Arabia but development has been held back by years of sanctions.

The interim Iraqi government wants to increase current production levels of about 2.5 million barrels a day to more than the pre-war level of 3 million barrels.

However, ongoing attacks on pipelines continues to hamper progress.

considering only 4 companies bid, how big can the short list be?

Technicals look good to. Today's close at 46.50 has broken the previous resistance level.

According to the article below there are only 3 companies and one is Petrel.


Shell turns down chance for first Iraq oil deal
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

BAGHDAD, July 8 (Reuters) - European oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell has turned down the chance to win the first foreign upstream oil production contract in post-war Iraq, saying the terms on offer from Baghdad's new interim government were not good enough.

Despite security concerns, Shell told Reuters on Thursday it considered bidding for production work on the billion-barrel Khurmala Dome field in northern Iraq.

"We obtained a copy of the tender but the scope and contract format are not compatible with our aspirations for long-term risk-reward contracts," a Shell spokesman said. Typically oil majors like to secure a 15-20 percent return on 25-30 year contracts. Shell declined to elaborate on the terms of offer.

Since the war ended last May work by foreign contractors in Iraq's vast oilfields, the world's second largest, has been limited mostly to short-term infrastructure repair contracts led by companies like U.S. Halliburton .

Security worries have severely limited the number of foreign bids for rehabilitation projects now on offer for three Iraqi oilfields. Shell's leading competitors BP (LSE: BP.L - news - msgs) and the U.S. oil majors show no sign yet of contemplating entry into Iraq.

Baghdad is hoping to award contracts by the end of August after extending the deadline for bids five times, industry insiders familiar with the tenders said on Thursday.

They said the tender for Khurmala Dome that took Shell's interest is worth $100 million worth of investment, small by Shell standards.

Shell was the only big name oil company that took interest in the tenders, they said. Small UAE, Irish and Turkish companies also bid for the projects -- part of a plan to help raise output by 20 percent by the end of this year.


INTEREST LIMITED

"Interest was limited. Oil officials are confident that the projects will be finally awarded," said one Arab oil executive involved in the tenders.

The other fields up for rehabilitation are the 2.2 billion barrel southern Suba-Luhais at $150 million and the smaller northern Hamrin field at a cost of $80 million.

Ireland's Petrel is bidding for all three, Managing Director David Morgan told Reuters.

Dome, a UAE company, and EverAsia from Turkey also have bid, Iraqi sources said.

Iraq wants to restore production capacity to pre-war volumes of about three million bpd from some 2.5 million bpd now.

Funding shortages and security problems have delayed 150 oil ministry projects. These are separate from $1.8 billion of U.S.-funded projects that have also run into delay.

But after a reshuffle at the oil ministry, head of projects Ahmad al-Shamma is planning to move plans forward.

The ministry invited international companies this week to bid for a pipeline project in the centre of the country and another tender to construct a new pipeline linking the Kirkuk fields to the Beiji refinery is expected to be issued this month.

sonoran energy submitted two tenders in may,they must have been the fourth co. to tender . see www.sonoranenergy.com then click on news releases
good luck to all,
dexter

weekend tip from uk analyst ; BUY petrel resources @ 46.5 , so says stewart dalby editor of oilbarrel.com
dexter

morning all,
see article on oilbarrel.com, seems to heading inthe right direction at last, by the way what does IMHO mean?
thanks
dexterhttp://www.oilbarrel.com

In My Honest Opinion.

thanks cunningham,

nice steady stream of buys, looking good.everbody must be topping up

250,000 buy at the end,should be good start for tomorrow
dexter

what is the feeling from this board, if petrel get only one of the contracts, what sort of stock price are we looking at? 3 pounds?
interested to see what you all think

looks ambitious judging by today

you have to remember that nothing dramatic is going to happen until,hopefully, they get a contract.all the time there are snippets of hopeful news the price is going to go up,then it will go down when things go quite for a while.even at todays price of 49-50p it`s very good when you consider that the price was only 20-30p in feb/march 2004.most of us are already sitting on a good profit, it`s just that this one could go into orbit,and that`s what make us greedy , for want of abetter word.
good luck
dexter

i want to be greedy too guess i'll just have to wait a while am in on pci too!

You could always eat a bag of doughnuts patsym till we hear some news!