http://www.gulfkeystone.com/ The firms exploration programme in Algeria is going well and "the shares look good value", say the Investors Chronicle. Your comments please. goal.

Have we been her before,hoping it's not another false dawn??


Jan 30 (Reuters) - After five years in the making, Iraq's parliament could have a first reading of a landmark oil law by early February, a senior Iraqi energy official said on Monday.

Adnan al-Janabi, head of Iraq's oil and energy committee, said he "hoped for some movement next month" on the legislation that is crucial to resolving a bitter feud between Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region over oil rights.

Janabi's committee has been poring over two versions of text that address the core disagreements between Baghdad and Arbil: the role of the governorates, the composition of the federal council, the ability of the regions and governorates to sign contracts and the issue of previously signed contracts. "My committee for more than a year has been debating, trying to focus on where to go," Janabi told reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference. "We are very close to going forward to parliament for a vote - and parliament will decide on which wording they will use."

He said one version considered all of the existing oil development contracts to be legal and another called for the deals to go through a "review process".

Janabi said that ultimately it was the job of the federal council to decide the fate of Iraq's existing oil contracts.

Baghdad has signed a series of service contracts with foreign oil companies that targets production capacity of 12 million barrels per day by 2017 - up from about 3 million bpd.

Arbil has sealed more than 40 production sharing contracts with foreign firms: exports have been running around 100,000 bpd. Kurdish authorities insist they should keep the right to manage oilfields in their region and have the right to strike deals, a demand seen by Baghdad as undermining its central control over this vital industry.

A move by Exxon Mobil to sign an exploration deal with Kurdistan further fanned the flames and Baghdad threatened to take action against the oil major, which also has a deal with the central government to develop a southern oilfield.

The new hydrocarbons law is crucial to Iraq's efforts to rebuild from decades of wars and sanctions by providing investors with a more solid legal framework.

But it has been held up by infighting among the Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish political groups that form Iraq's fragile coalition government led by Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. (Reporting by Peg Mackey, editing by William Hardy)

Fox Davies today
"Gulf Keystone volumes were very interesting today, with nearly 10 million shares changing hands before lunch, on a quiet day in the market. We will be watching the news wires over the next few days to see if anybody reports the sale. An interesting point to note from the last Kurdistan operational update, was John Gerstenlauer, Gulf Keystone's Chief Operating Officer comments, "Initial results of the Shaikan-4 well testing programme are very encouraging with logging results indicating that Shaikan-4 may be the best well which Gulf Keystone has logged to date in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. We look forward to adding to our already outstanding drilling success in the region by completing further Shaikan-4 well tests, which will be followed by more results from the Shaikan-5 and Shaikan-6 appraisal wells before the appraisal programme of the Shaikan world-class discovery is completed. Initial results from the Ber Bahr-1 exploration well and progress in the 2012 wide-ranging exploration, appraisal and early development programme of the Akri-Bijeel block are also highly anticipated." So the market will be looking for updates from Shaikan-5 and Shaikan-6 over the coming weeks."

bit of a non day today really - where are the big buys - pls?

Just back from the pub and came across this?


l
From the GKP presentation:

http://www.gulfkeystone.com/uploads/lseoginvestorforumpresentation.pdf

Page 9 highlights the PSC terms.

100% - 10% for royalty
90%
This is then split as up to 40% Cost Recovery, 60% Profit Oil. Any unusued Cost filters into Profit Oil.

GKP are then entitled to 15-30% of the Profit Oil, minus 40% of that for KRG as a special tax.

Let's just say $100 per barrel.
Leaves $90 after royalty.
Assume contractor recovers 30%, so $27.
Leaves $63 as profit oil.

15% of that is $9.45 minus 40% = $5.67
30% of that is $18.90 minus 40% = $11.34

Or 5.67% - 11.34% of the gross production.

The other point is still being missed that the contractor can take cost and profit oil as freely exported crude as per the KRG's own website (Article 28 If I recall?). That would really benefit a Major wanting to secure supply.

Just back from the pub at midnight on a monday??? I hope you are counting the units as you go cyril?

sp is clearly finding the 280/285 resistance very stubborn indeed - most annoying but perhaps like a champagne cork when it is finally breached

anybody popped your cork lately cynic.,.

spat the pip out of my cherry to be more accurate

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-31/iraq-lawmaker-janabi-says-no-rules-prevent-exxon-kurdistan-deal.html

No denial.

From the Exxon conference call:

Question: "Can you comment on the status of West Quorna and how that project is going and then the related part of that is can you make any comments on adding acreage in Kurdistan... there's been a lot of press about that and I don't think you've put out anything officially. That's the first question. Thank you"

Answer: "Let me actually answer those in reverse. I don't have any comments to make today on Kurdistan. I will though tell you that in the West Quorna field things are proceeding on plan. We continue to meet our production commitments..." bla bla bla

Ladies ?...where did you get those one liners from?.....sounds like the Marx brothers are back in town !.

me? ..... oi makes 'em up as oi goes along ... it's the way i tells them!

Cynic...on a more serious note : check out FPM....for 2012 at least....looks like a superb little medium oilie....worth a punt....even if latest wells come up dry...no need to worry....sp will come back.....

looked at FPM before and concluded that good though its record is, it is horribly illiquid

I've had no problem in trading them......

From my Iraq report today:
Exxon declined to report its KRG deals in a quarterly filing, but disclosure rules could require the company to break its silence in February.

News from the Hew York presentation.


Apologies, new to this Board so re-posting some details that I placed in different thread earlier. Hope of interest:

I just attended the NY investor summit, so here's a brief summary of what JG said. Presentation seemed to be same as for LSE last week but some very interesting snippets. Apologies in advance as a lot of scribbles (feel free to post on iii if of interest as trying to sort my login out there), and usual disclosures about information and how it should be treated apply (this is a brief summary only)

- JG opened by saying this would be the 'best story of the day'. He explained how the company had grown from almost $40m in value to nearly $4bn in a few years.

- He gave the current figures for oil in all blocks and said there is PLENTY of upside left. He said that he believes current figures (for Shaikan in particular) are conservative. He later mentioned on 2 separate occasions they are confident Shaikan is full to spill and a figure of 18bn barrels is likely.

- As heard before, they have tested all the good stuff and are now testing all the 'bad stuff' to see what is really there. He mentioned one part that was a pokey little area and which produced 5,000bpd

- SH-1 and SH-3 are hooked up for production, have expanded well test facilities. SH-4 is the best so far, they are still testing.

- Sheikh Adi they believe there is a lot more oil on the other side of the fault. SH-7 will be the last of the Shaikan appraisal wells. ALL reservoirs and intervals (in SH) have been full of oil and gas. No dry holes, not even in the intervals. They are looking at 300m (1,000ft of net pay which is huge amount).

- 122km pipeline to start this summer. $170mn costs, will finish mid 2013.

- After SH-6 TD, GKP has 30 days to submit development plan to KRG in July / August this year. The clock starts then (on the 30 year production front).

- He believes they have a 10 year plateau of producing between 400k and 600k bpd. Shaikan could be producing for 80 to 100 years so they will leave a lot of oil in the ground.

- **He says according to KRG website BIRs are to be sold to KNOC, the Koreans (note I believe he was referring specifically to Shaikan here, which is why I was surprised).

- Every piece of news on Shaikan good so far, not limited by water point to date. Testing on wells limited to 10,000bpd but more potential.

- cash flow to finance everything. Project insensitive to Capex / Opex issues.

- No security concerns. 5 years in Kurd, no incident. Erbil like a mini Dubai, boom town.

- Shaikan lots of directional drilling. 1mbpd AVAILABLE in Kirkuk to Ceyhan pipeline. They will have capacity for 400,000bpd but could 'twin' the pipeline to expand this.

- More on figures. BB - 5bn to 10bn expected, SA - 3bn to 6bn, SH 18bn, AB - MID 20s. (yes, big number). Said if they don't get good price for AB share (process to start this week) then they would hang on as could be v profitable.

- DGA report would not be until SH-5 complete so few months away. Next report likely to be from ERC Equapoise(?).

- Still on course for FTSE main listing (would currently be number 95).

- Asked whether they plan to fully develop Shaikan or sell off: they are continuing with their full plan "BUT WHEN THEY WANT TO BUY US ( I understood meaning Shaikan), they're going to buy us. Many majors.. [will be interested]".

Please don't take everything word for word as this is a broad summary. My impression is they are conituning to do all possible to prove up the oil, increase production and create more attractive assets. However, at some stage, a big player will in all probability take a piece(s) off their hands.

He said what they do know of Shaikan so far is worth about double the current share price....

Seems to be building well this a.m. but not huge volume......something on the way???

Nice surge....boy ! oh boy !....

has the cork popped (cherry been taken/eaten?) at long last? .... it'll be interesting to see if sp can now hold above 280/285, even as a precursor for more exciting things that just may be afoot