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.

don't you knock corrie!!!.,.

my kids had a great time .... we stayed at Knoll House several times = Butlins with BMWs!

Sorry not quite as glamorous where we stayed........a guest house up Victoria Avenue! but very happy memories.

the great advantage of knoll house is that it has a really good adventure playground for the kids, and a nudist beach for the (fool)hardy very nearby :-))

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/10/22/uk-iraq-kurdistan-traders-idUKBRE89L0TI20121022

Mr P - please can you tell me where that mini-minnow Gazprom is based? ..... surely it must be bermuda or similar

Exxon Mobil has been followed by other majors including Chevron, Total and Gazprom, as production-sharing deals with Arbil are seen as a far better arrangement than Baghdad's fee-for-service contracts.

Re: Court 15 - Day V

B19400
11UP
JG explored the problems Excalibur had with funding. At no point did they get past "first base" with any prospective funders.

The fact that Excalibur likened themselves to Vast got a good laugh all round.

We are all aware that Jones Day have been seeking disclosure in the American courts. Clifford Chance have been very keen that this tactic failed. It did not fail, and we now have EWs email off the UBS servers (hence the email we heard this morning).

Another email from EW to RW said "$1M is one hell of a good payday considering you could not get funding".

Much was made by SP earlier of TK making five witness statements; it transpires that RW himself has made four!!

Back in tomorrow morning.

TK & JBG not here today. EW absent too.
---------------------

Thanks to B19400 ---- again !

More from court.


'18:33
Re: My version - court today
White Lion 23
5
Lastly – and I will interject the mother of all caveats here as I do not understand what the judge was talking about! – the judge asked before court was adjourned whether it was really necessary to work out possible damages before the outcome as they might not be necessary.

He went on to talk about whether it should be a split trial (sorry I don’t know what this is). Pickens said he had argued against this previously (and GKP/TKI had argued for) and it was decided not to have a split trial.

The judge said determining quantum would be unnecessary in 2 out of the 3 possible outcomes. I think this was all in relation to the fact that the judge wants an efficient court and not waste time unnecessarily. Maybe the resident legal experts can shed light on this. Maybe I have not quite understood it'

sounds almost as though he is guiding the jury to find against Excalibur, for surely it is only that party that is seeking damages

Re: My version - court today

White Lion 23
40UP
Lastly – and I will interject the mother of all caveats here as I do not understand what the judge was talking about! – the judge asked before court was adjourned whether it was really necessary to work out possible damages before the outcome as they might not be necessary.

He went on to talk about whether it should be a split trial (sorry I don’t know what this is). Pickens said he had argued against this previously (and GKP/TKI had argued for) and it was decided not to have a split trial.

The judge said determining quantum would be unnecessary in 2 out of the 3 possible outcomes. I think this was all in relation to the fact that the judge wants an efficient court and not waste time unnecessarily. Maybe the resident legal experts can shed light on this. Maybe I have not quite understood it.


On a lighter note, I think I saw Mikey. He looked like he was off fishing! I don't know if anyone could corroborate whether that was him?!

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18:11
Re: My version - court today

White Lion 23
89UP
PART 2


Exc arguments that they would have raised the money (and responses)


Argument 1 – Because GKP were able to raise money in 2008-2009, it must follow that Exc would have. JG said this was false due to the fact that Exc had no expertise and no money of their own invested, amongst other things.

Exc claim that they are similar to Vast, who were able to raise money.

JG said firstly that Vast were a publicly listed company and that they could be compared to Vast was “utterly absurd and grossly misleading” JG quote.

He said Vast were part of Forbes and Manhattan banking group, who had large oil/gas exploration experience, dozens of technical/geos and a company director of Vast (Mr Bharti) had a wealth of experience and is highly regarded. “Comparisons completely ludicrous” JG comment

Argument 2 – Exc could reinvent itself

JG went to town on this one

(approx. quote) “It is fairyland. If one believes in magic a frog may turn into a prince”.

In order to emphasise that Exc thought they were ok as they were (ie they had no intentions of re-inventing themselves) JG quoted an email from one of the Wempens:

(I cannot completely remember who sent it to whom) something along the lines of they will promote themselves as Sharia to attract “stupid/ignorant investors”. This got the people in the cheap seats going!

Other arguments included GKP caused an obstruction and this stopped Exc getting funding.

JG said this was after the event, made up stuff and there was no evidence to support it.

He said no investors were interested and therefore GKP couldn’t have blocked them as no potential investors asked for any detailed info.


I have only attended today and therefore have not heard Exc opening statements, therefore cannot compare. However JG was very impressive and he arguments that Exc were completely unable to attract any kind of funding at the time appeared to be strong and well backed up.

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17:54
My version - court today

White Lion 23
92UP
I attended court today but missed most of the morning session. I have tried to recall events as best I can (partly with the help of notes) and I am not legally minded. Anyone that was there please correct me if anything I have written is not correct in any way.

Most of today was about funding and whether Exc would have raised the required money to be involved from the beginning.



Before lunch JG referred to motive:

Why would GKP want to cut Exc out of a highly speculative wildcat drill when they needed to raise money.

In 2007 there was an email from John Cooper to TK saying the following:

GKP were short of money and if SH and AB were signed, they needed to bring forward funding attempts.

There were concerns that shareholders might not be interested in Kurdistan.



After lunch JG sought to show that Exc could not AND would not have been able to raise the money. He emphasised that Exc needed to show that they would have been able to raise the money, not just could have. A subtle but important point.

In one of the Wempens fourth witness statements they said Exc would have raised private equity finance; note private equity finance. JG believed this to be a cardinal mistake – as private equity relies on Exc having a number of qualities (a total of 5 – in which they had 0).

JG then systematically attempted to show that Exc were completely unable to get anywhere near anyone being interested in private equity finance:


JG said that the order of events in raising private equity finance is to give a teaser document (1 page) to tempt would be investors. If they were ‘tempted’, they would then sign a non-disclosure agreement and see more details.

JG said they approached 10 companies and non of them signed a non-disclosure.

Reasons given for this (I forget by whom) were:

1. Risky terrain
2. Difficult conditions
3. Exc had no characteristics necessary to invest
4. (amazingly) investors had to invest in a fund for Exc and they would then do as they pleased with it ie Shaikan would be the first investment but others were not yet identified

JG said the burden of proof was on Exc that it could and would have raised the money. This was questioned but I’m afraid I didn’t understand the legal talk about it.

Concluding this JG said Exc sought to raise the money and failed at every instance. He said that Eric Wempen agreed, citing a quote from an email (EW to RW):

“1 million is a hell of a pay day considering you probably couldn’t have raised the money”.

I will post JG’s responses to Exc arguments that they would have raised the money when I have written them.

http://gkpinvestor.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=analysis&action=display&thread=1602

The Kurds know the Russians getting into bed with Iraq is bad news for them..........

http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/10/state6576.htm

Once Iraq gets the planes and weapons it needs then one rebellious province of the country is going to get "sorted out".

And with Russia and China having "veto" rights on the UN security council, there is nothing the US or UN can do as Kurdistan is simply a province of Iraq, nothing more, just like Russia is using its veto to stop the UN/US from doing anything in Syria.

to repeat a bit of 3593 .......

Mr P - please can you tell me where that mini-minnow Gazprom is based?

Gazprom are pulling out of Kurdistan...................

http://rt.com/business/news/gazprom-kurdistan-oil-plans-092/

Gazprom and Gazprom Neft have not denied this statement from the Iraqi ministry.

All there has been is some un-named "source" who claimed its not true in some western media.
.

so P, you are saying that reuters story is less than economical with the truth then .... you think that the iraqi oil ministry is more likely to give a correct version perhaps?

Proselenes.....arz youz sim kind of Bond Agent.?....but like ez doubles agent ?...

Posted on GENL,but also concerns GKP.


TH gave a lecture tonight at a posh school here is a report about it from iii

23:47
Re: first gkp mini meet
onlookout
1

Yep, was good meeting up - a really enthusiastic group (as you might expect) and a pleasure to meet you all.

It was a 1/2 hr lecture with 1/2 hr of Q/A's, so we were somewhat limited to what questions we could pitch, especially given it was a mix of school/general public and not Pi centric. After the first Iraq specific question he did say 'ah, we have some people that know about oil here'

Interestingly he did mention Kurd independence when he first touched on Iraq, but then backtracked and clarified he didn't mean independence......and this was before he knew their were PI's in the audience. He did joke about someone from Bloomberg or Reuters being in the audience, but didn't realize that exposure to the GKP/BB would probably be worse!

As Claws mentioned, one question we DID get to him was a view on how the KRG/Bagdad thing would pan out, with the answer that Iraq would probably end up splitting up into its different sects. He answered without any hesitation, as though he really believed this view.

After the finish he had a few hangers-on in his vicinity - plus the entire 14-ish GKP/BB entourage! On congratulating him about his talk, and the lighthearted suggestion that some of our GKP proceeds would probably be coming to Genel, he suggested GKP had probably reached close to its valuation at £2.25. My interpretation at this point was that he simply couldn't have the conversation!

Please feel free to correct/add to anything I've said.

">

http://www.iraqoilreport.com/daily-brief/kurdish-pm-barzani-to-visit-moscow-9082/

Exactly cyril, read the full news article :

http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/10/state6574.htm

Iraqi Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani to visit Russia next month 21.10.2012
By Ekurd.net staff writers


ERBIL-Hewlêr, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — The president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani will officially visit Russia in November next, as reported by the statement of the regional government in Erbil.

The statement added that the visit comes by an official invitation by Russian President Vladimir Putin, "but has nothing with Premier Nouri l-Maliki's late visit to Moscow".

Iraqi premier Maliki visited Moscow at the beginning of this month, where military contracts were signed with an amount of more than 4 billion dollars.

In the Czech Republic, Maliki made an additional purchase of 28 L-159 jets for $1 billion.

Some of Iraq's neighbors and the Kurdish president Massoud Barzani, have said they are worried about Baghdad acquiring the jets.

"I feel Kurdistan's future is in severe danger because of (Maliki)," Barzani said in April 2012. "F-16 (jets) should not reach the hands of this man (Maliki)."

Barzani alleged that Maliki had discussed using F-16s against Kurdistan during a meeting with military officers.

"During a military meeting, they talked about problems between Baghdad and Erbil ," Barzani said.

"They told him, 'Sir, just give us the authority, and we would kick them out of Erbil ,'" Barzani said. "And (Maliki) answered: 'Wait until the arrival of the F-16.'"

The central government and the Kurdish region have long-running disputes over political autonomy, oil rights and contested territories.


Sources: Ekurd.net | Reuters | aswataliraq.info | Agencies

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