Another newcomer to the main market...anybody any idea what the production figures are ?

Took your eye off the ball cynic, just come in from work and couldn't believe my eyes.

confess i did not see the RNS until sticky digit pointed it out ...... anyway, lots of 2-way traffic and i guess some profit-taking was overdue ..... still reckon it's a load of sabre rattling for the press and hoi polloi

Luckily took a small portion of profits earlier on .....but this is a real knock back !.

maybe .... but buys/sells were level

Hope that this does not drop anymore, still in with a hefty amount of shares...!....it shows that in this market, this year it is good to take profits along the way !.

still nicely in the money here and fully expect it all to bounce back .... just hope it's not too scary in the meantime

Was hanging on and hoping for a drop so I could get in.... got more than i bargained for. lol As cynic says buys and sells level, possible up again quite soon. do i dip my toes tomorrow a.m. or wait and see?? Crystal ball where are you.

crystal balls says yes

Bagdad probably will have to send experts to the Kurdish oilfields to check things over and stamp their approval over it.....then they will work out who gets what in percentage terms but if they are saying it is good for Iraq that there are new oil exports : well it does look like that in the end everybody will be happy....I'm pretty certain that the Bagdad authorities will not want a blocking by the Kurds of exports and money flowing in !.

this last bit of the RNS was the most important ......

Shahristani (he's the geezer what was jumping up and down!) has defended his record against criticism that Iraq's oil output of 2.3-2.4 million barrels per day remains at below the level it was at before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
He faces calls to testify before parliament.
The joint news conference with Dabbagh appeared to be a signal that the government intended to stand by Shahristani as he prepares to announce the results of the first round of service contract tenders over two days on June 29/30.
Dabbagh said he hoped new oil and gas laws -- held up in parliament -- will resolve the issue of oil deals.
In a conciliatory tone that suggested the government's stance could be softening despite its rhetoric, Dabbagh also said the launch of Kurdish crude exports was good for Iraq, which desperately needs money to rebuild after years of war.
"It will narrow the gaps between the different points of views," he said.

On this there should be a rebound tomorrow....oil is at the moment in a rising trend : $71.34 when I last looked...producers and explorers with assets should continue to rise.

Cyners, due dilligence as still to be done on this deal, how on earth can auditors give the thumbs up knowing some operations are illegal????????????.

quite easily actually and the (il)legality is patently debatable depending on whether or not you are an iraqi minister!

The bottom line is : Iraq needs exports of oil and the companies that the Kurds have given the go ahead to (AXC, HOIL..etc) are already up and running and doing a fine job....are the Bagdad authorities really going to put a halt to this ?....it would be a major setback for their exports and the relationship between Northern Iraq and the rest of the country would be strained !.

announce the results of the first round of service contract tenders over two days on June 29/30.

prob heavy volatility until then

Does that include Kurdistan ?

yes - see rns above

Interim results also out for HOIL on 18th june. May be glossed over under the circumstances.

Business Financial Newswire
"Heritage Oil has raised 132m gross via a placing of 25.4m shares -representing 9.8% of the existing share capital - at 520p each.
The placing price represents a premium of 2.9% to the closing price on 12 June 2009. "

From the New Zealand Herald.
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Iraqi oil minister accused of mother of all sell-outs
9:09AM Thursday Jun 18, 2009
By Patrick Cockburn
Furious protests threaten to undermine the Iraqi government's controversial plan to give international oil companies a stake in its giant oilfields in a desperate effort to raise declining oil production and revenues.

In less than two weeks, on 29 and 30 June, the Iraqi Oil Minister, Hussain Shahristani, will award service contracts to the world's largest oil companies to develop six of Iraq's largest oil-producing fields over 20 to 25 years.

Senior figures within the Iraqi oil industry have denounced the deal. Fayad al-Nema, the director of the South Oil Company, which comes under the Oil Ministry and produces most of Iraq's crude, said on the weekend: "The service contracts will put the Iraqi economy in chains and shackle its independence for the next 20 years. They squander Iraq's revenues."

Mr Nema is reported to have since been fired because of his opposition to the contracts, which he says is shared by many other officials in Iraq's state-owned oil industry.

The government maintains that it is not compromising the ownership of Iraq's oil reserves - the third largest in the world at 115 billion barrels - on which the country is wholly dependent to fund its recovery from 30 years of war, sanctions and occupation.

But the fall in the oil price over the past year has left the government facing a financial crisis; 80 per cent of its revenues go to pay for salaries, food rations and recurrent costs.

Little is left for reconstruction and the government is finding it hard to pay even for much-needed items such as an electrical plant from GE and Siemens.

The development of Iraq's oil reserves is of great importance to the world's energy supply in the 21st century. They may be even larger than Saudi Arabia's, as there was little exploration while Iraq was ruled by Saddam Hussein. International oil companies are desperate to get their foot in the door.

"Everyone wants to be in Iraq," says Ruba Husari, an expert on Iraqi oil. "Together with Iran, this is the only oil province in the world that has great potential. It is a great opportunity for oil companies because nobody knows the size of Iraq's reserves. Iraq itself needs to know what is under its soil."

But Iraqis are wary of the involvement of foreign oil companies in raising production in super giant fields like Kirkuk and Bai Hassan in the north and Rumaila, Zubair and West Qurna in the south.

They suspect the 2003 US invasion was ultimately aimed at securing Western control of their oil wealth. The nationalisation of the Iraqi oil industry by Saddam Hussein in 1972 remains popular and the rebellion against the service contracts has been gathering pace all this week.

Parliament is demanding that bidding be delayed. MPs summoned Mr Shahristani, pictured left, a nuclear scientist imprisoned and tortured under Saddam Hussein, to answer questions about the service contracts and the fall in Iraq's oil production and exports.

Jabir Khalifa Kabir, the secretary of parliament's oil and gas committee, says the contracts will "chain the government with complex contractual terms" and will abort South Oil Company's own plans to raise production. The government says the bidding must go ahead.

The contracts are not particularly favourable to the international oil companies. They are rather the outcome of the companies' extreme eagerness to get into Iraq and the government's attempt to obtain expertise and investment without ceding control.

The companies will be paid a fee linked to first restoring and then increasing oil output. They will, however, have greater control when there is a second round of bidding for oilfields which have been discovered but not yet developed. Separate again is the question of exploration for as yet undiscovered oil reserves.

Critics of the deal in parliament say that Iraq has already invested US$8bn in developing its super giant fields. But Mr Shahristani needs $50bn over the next five or six years to raise current production levels from 2.5 million barrels a day of crude and knows the money and expertise can only come from outside Iraq.

The government in Baghdad may be near broke but Iraqis ask whose fault that is. The Oil Ministry, like much of the government, is dysfunctional when it comes to carrying out long-term projects. Mr Shahristani is blamed for poor management skills, though he eloquently defends himself by saying that when he took over the ministry in 2006, he had to cope with attacks by guerrillas who once were blowing up a pipeline every day.

This explains Mr Shahristani's problems in northern Iraq, where the Sunni Arab insurgency of 2003-08 was strong, but not in the far south, where the Shia community is dominant and there was no uprising.

Jabbar al-Luaibi, the former head of the South Oil Company, who battled to maintain oil production in these years, gave a devastating interview detailing the failings of the Oil Ministry to provide the most basic equipment needed to monitor the oil reservoirs.

"It's like driving your car without any indicators on the dashboard," he said, adding that if mismanagement continued in the same way as in the past "who knows, we might have to start importing crude oil".

The Iraqi government made two other mistakes for which it is now paying. It optimistically believed the price of oil would stay high at $140 a barrel. Instead of investing extra revenues by paying for outside expertise and equipment to raise production in the oilfields, it spent the money on raising the pay of government employees and increasing their number.

This increased Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's popularity in the provincial elections in January but left the government short of cash when oil prices collapsed. Prices have risen since then, but not nearly enough to solve the government's problems.

In June 2008 the Iraqi oil industry seemed poised to receive foreign help by signing two-year technical support contracts with oil companies. Control would have remained with Iraq. However, at the last minute, the contracts were cancelled despite being supported by Mr Shahristani and the council of ministers. The reason why this happened explains much about why the state machine is unable to carry out long-term policies. Jobs are allocated to members of political parties regardless of their experience or abilities. After 2003 the Oil Ministry had been the fief of the Fadhila, a Shia Islamic party strong in Basra, and, though it left the government, it never wholly accepted Mr Shahristani as minister.

Showing a certain cheek, Fadhila members n having sabotaged the plan to acquire foreign expertise when money was available to buy it last year n now criticise the government for being forced to accept worse terms because it cannot invest itself.

Many Iraqis will be angered to see their historic oilfields being partially run by foreign companies. But the government believes it has no choice.

(Corporation Mark) THE INDEPENDENT