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

Good luck to the PET holders.

I hope it works out for you all.

I will only watch this time.

sww

Teelings reputation in the city, which must be known in Iraq is not helping PET.

Oil majors take a back seat as minnows pursue Iraq deals
By James Boxell
Published: April 14 2005 03:00 | Last updated: April 14 2005 03:00

David Horgan, managing director of Petrel Resources, says his pursuit of oil deals in Iraq is not about money. It is about glory.

While the world's biggest listed oil groups bide their time and hope for the political and security situation in Iraq to stabilise, small companies such as Ireland-based Petrel are looking to take advantage of their hesitation.



The rest of this article is for FT.com subscribers only

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ebc925a4-ac80-11d9-bb67-00000e2511c8.html


wilbs

Found it all wilbs if you want it!

Oil majors take a back seat as the minnows pursue Iraq deals
By James Boxell
Published: April 14 2005 03:00 | Last updated: April 14 2005 03:00

David Horgan, managing director of Petrel Resources, says his pursuit of oil deals in Iraq is not about money. It is about glory.

While the world's biggest listed oil groups bide their time and hope for the political and security situation in Iraq to stabilise, small companies such as Ireland-based Petrel are looking to take advantage of their hesitation.

"If you are John Browne [chief executive of BP], it is very hard to take the risk of going in," Mr Horgan says. "It would be a huge liability for them if something bad happened, and bad things can happen in Iraq."

Royal Dutch/Shell has a chairman for Iraq, Wolfgang Strl, who has not set foot in the country since 2002.

BP and Shell are helping out on technical studies on the large Rumaila and Kirkuk fields for Iraq's oil ministry but neither has any people on the ground.

All the big international oil companies do want access to Iraq's 115bn barrels of proved reserves - with some estimating that twice that is waiting to be developed.

But despite conspiracy theories coming out of the Gulf last year - that Iraq had already been carved up between BP and Exxon-Mobil, with ChevronTexaco picking up the scraps - the "supermajors" are sitting tight.

Austrian-born Mr Strl, based in Dubai, says: "In the longer term, we want a material and enduring relationship with Iraq. But some key issues need to be resolved, such as a fully sovereign government and the ability for our staff to operate securely and safely."

This opens the door for "entrepreneurs and all their animal spirit", according to Mr Horgan, at Petrel. "We are prepared to do irrational things. We want to be in the next edition of The Prize [Dan Yergin's influential history of the global oil industry]."

Smaller companies may be prepared to risk working in Iraq to steal a march on the industry behemoths. But the question of whether they can strike deals - or whether the deals will be binding - is yet to be answered, especially at a time when Iraq is between oil ministers.

John Dorrier, chief executive of Gulfsands Petroleum, the Houston-based oil group that raised 30m through a London flotation last week, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the oil ministry to explore a deal to capture flared gas on a southern Iraqi oil field.

The company employs three or four Iraqis on the ground on an as-needed basis and an Iraqi-born board member is regularly in the country.

But while Mr Dorrier says the ministry is eager to engage international companies, striking commercial terms is "difficult in a conventional sense. There is no fixed contract model, fixed tenders or schedules".

He says the company hopes to get protection if it strikes a deal on its potential $760m project by securing backing from the US government and project financing from international credit agencies such as the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

Mr Horgan also bemoans the fact that the bidding process on recent oil services tenders for improving production in Iraq has been somewhat opaque.

Petrel has lost out on two bids: for the Khurmala Dome field in the north of Iraq to a Kurdish-led group and the Himrin field, also in northern Iraq, to a group led by OGI of Canada.

It is still in the running for the Subba and Lohais fields, close to the Kuwait border, and has already conducted a $350,000 feasibility study on the two fields.

But Mr Horgan says the process has been "confused" and he is yet to be notified that he has lost out on the first two bids.

"We do not know whether they do not like us because of the bid, the price or whatever," said Mr Horgan. "It is not ideal that there is no formal notification but this is a war zone."

Another executive with Iraqi interests says: "The procurement guy may just be checking price

Interesting read. The IMO seem to be still all over the place but I guess thats to be expected given the situation in Iraq. PET are determined and keep pushing forward and belive they are in with a chance. If the majors are holding back that leaves PET in a good position and they will be rewarded for their work and patience, its just a matter of when......
With the new goverment in place, surely they will want to be pushing ahead with getting the oil flowing??
All IMHO
wilbs

Looking quite cheap now at 35p.

GAMBLERS ONLY NEED APPLY!!!

Don't know if anybody is still hanging on to these, but looks like something may be about to break, up 23% this morning so far, on no news!

PTH

Let's hope so, I'm down quite a bit but trying pull back some gains ;)

No RNS but posters in the ADVFN board think news is imminent and one poster was advised by his broker to buy. This share is very speculative but can take off on good news. However, the management team did not do well with PRE, so do not invest anything in PET you cannot afford to lose. Good luck.

get real everyone! this share is not up 23% on imminent news. it is up 23% as a result of being trounced over the last 2 weeks on no news. it was pretty inevitable it would bounce to some extent. (and don't ask if it was so inevitable did i buy? the answer's no, because i had no money left after averaging down so many times from 140.

despite the 27% rise so far, its probably still in the red for a lot of people!

IG Index will now alow me to open a position. Its only alowing to close positions.
wilbs

eh?

I concur, skids will be in the red for a while yet

Well PET s, either something positive is about to happen or the garden path is still in front of this stock!

Steady climb is more than a bounce imo.

New Iraqi Government in, ach, who knows???

Interesting to see over the next day what happens.

Has PET woken upor anew stye m/mover

Its been hot today still got me long.

From the times website.

May 04, 2005

Rumour of the Day



Talk that Petrel Resources may succeed in winning the contract to develop the Subba & Luhais oilfield in Iraq sent the AIM-listed minnow up 8p to 35p. Dublin-based Petrel has seen its shares tumble from 133p since failing to win Khurmala or Hamrin, the first two fields put out to tender by the Iraqi Ministry of Oil.




http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2733-1596776,00.html

wilbs