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.

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thanks,missed that,not the most compendent imo?

http://www.investegate.co.uk/gulf-keystone-petrol--gkp-/rns/directorate-change/201406160700326502J/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2014/06/16/iraqi-kurdistan-set-to-become-an-independent-world-oil-power/
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Iraqi Kurdistan Set To Become An Independent World Oil Power
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Last Thursday, after ISIS forces captured Mosul and Kurdish fighters had moved into Kirkuk, I wrote a piece about how the Kurdish Regional Government might end up being the “unlikely losers” in the ensuing chaos. Its peshmerga forces were in danger of being stretched thin. Its two renegade tankers full of oil had no buyers. Surely, it seemed last Thursday, that President Obama would never dream of allowing Baghdad (and especially the Green Zone) to come under ISIS attack. Wouldn’t the U.S. prop up Maliki and ensure the survival of Iraqi federalism?

No. That article was wrong. As numerous readers were all too happy to point out. The Kurd forces appear to be comfortably holding their territory. The Baghdad airport is reportedly under attack. ISIS militias have brutally machine gunned hundreds of government forces. The U.S. government is evacuating diplomats from the Green Zone (a la the fall of Saigon). Iran is said to have sent Revolutionary Guard forces to Baghdad. Obama has urged Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to sort it all out diplomatically.

Iraq was an artificial state to begin with, its borders drawn by British bureaucrats with no regard to tribal territories. The consensus now, especially among Kurdish people, is that this “Iraq” will soon cease to exist altogether.

The Kurdish region is blessed with an estimated 45 billion barrels of oil, more than Libya. Exxon, Chevron CVX +0.91%, Total and many others have invested billions there to explore and drill virgin fields in concessions doled out by the Kurdish Regional Government. The KRG had not had any control over the supergiant Kirkuk field, which produced more than 650,000 barrels per day at its peak more than a decade ago. Like all mature fields in Iraq, Kirkuk was under the purview of the oil ministry in Baghdad, which contracted last year with BP to start rehabbing the field. The Kurds opposed the BP deal. With or without Kirkuk, the Kurdish region could readily sustain 400,000 barrels per day of oil production.

Baghdad’s control over Kirkuk may well be history now that Kurd forces are at long last in control of Kirkuk and have no intention of leaving. Writing on Twitter TWTR +0.3%, Fanar Haddad, of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore, wrote: “Is it just me or has Kirkuk, an issue of massive complexity & contention & the possible source of a future war, been solved overnight?”

After the events of the last few days it seems the Kurds can now, at last, make their own rules. So what does that mean for those tankers full of Kurdish crude? The ones loaded in Turkey, which have drawn condemnation from Baghdad, which called the shipments illegal and threatened legal action against anyone who dared to buy them? They are reportedly still floating off the coasts of Malta and Morocco. With Kurdish independence appearing to grow closer every day, perhaps this will be the week when the world’s oil buyers put aside any concern of being blacklisted by Baghdad, and step up to buy them.

When it happens it will open the floodgates for Kurdish exports, and initiate a flood of cash to the Kurdish Regional Government, which is now moving inexorably closer to becoming an independent state, and a major world oil power.

Cyril, re post #4910. Those are my calculations that you've posted. I've reworked the figures based on the latest information and it now looks as though the net payback per barrel is $31.01. I reckon this must be down to the $1 per barrel Syrian Refugees payment. I can only assume the refugees deduction was taken subsequent to the previously posted calcs.

worth reading the whole of this article, so for once have not paraphrased .....


The Iraq crisis and its oil market impact


As the week-long militant offensive in Iraq continues, there have been numerous developments across both the Iraqi and global oil sector.

PRICES/SUPPLY

Brent futures are trading close to a nine-month high at $113/b, finding support from the ongoing fighting in Iraq

OPEC Secretary General Abdalla el-Badri said the oil market had been spooked by the ongoing violence, but stressed that Iraq's oil production had not been affected. He said that if the situation were to change in the coming months, OPEC would look again at what action it could take

The International Energy Agency said that Iraq's oil production should not be affected by the violence provided it does not spread further south. But it said the political hurdles faced by Baghdad remain "huge."

Exports continue from Basra in southern Iraq; oil minister Abdul-Karim al-Luaibi said June exports would likely average 2.6 million b/d.

Crude from the Kurdistan region is continuing to flow to Turkey at a rate of some 120,000 b/d, according to Turkish energy minister Taner Yildiz.

Genel Energy said it and its partners have boosted production from the Taq Taq and Tawke fields in Kurdistan as the increasing instability in therest of Iraq has boosted demand for refined products.

Resumption of exports of Iraqi crude via the Iraq-Turkey pipeline now seen as very unlikely in short-term.

Traders do not expect resumption of exports of Kirkuk oil until August at the very earliest

COMPANY SECURITY

BP and ExxonMobil have evacuated foreign workers from Basra out of the country.

Japan Petroleum Exploration Company, or Japex, is to evacuate staff from the Gharraf field.

Lukoil and Shell say there has been no drawdown of staff at their projects.

PetroChina said that while there were no plans to evacuate workers, but that it has prepared "contingency plans."

China's CNOOC has also reportedly prepared contingency plans.

South Korea's Daewoo Engineering and Construction has asked for a declaration of force majeure on its work at the troubled Akkas gas field in western Iraq.

South Korea's Kogas said its gas projects in Iraq could be delayed and that it was preparing for legal measures.

Producers in Kurdistan said operations continued as normal.

POLITICS

The prime minister of Kurdistan is in Tehran for talks with Iranian officials amid efforts to thwart the Sunni insurgent offensive north of Baghdad.

Arab foreign ministers are set to meet this week in Saudi Arabia to discuss what the Arab League on Monday called the "critical situation" in Iraq.

Kurdish forces have already taken control of the disputed Iraqi oil hub of Kirkuk to protect it against jihadists that have seized large chunks of the country.

The US is preparing to launch direct talks with Iran on how the longtime foes can halt a radical Sunni insurgency that has seized a swathe of Iraq.

Saudi Arabia has called for the quick formation of a national consensus government in Iraq, blaming Baghdad's "sectarian" policies against Sunni Arabs for the unrest now sweeping the country.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/17/iraq-kurdistan-exports-idUSL5N0OY2GD20140617?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=bondsNews&rpc=401

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000285240

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27883997

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If my memory serves me right,the issue for the Sunni's is one of revemue.How will they support themselves as most of the oil is in the South and Kurdish regions.Worth checking post 4912 again.

I've just bought back in, this uprising sould well see all the keys finally get turned. Its no coincidence that America or UK isn't getting involved. It pushes Iraq to get on and deal with the Kurds.

the ruling shias first need to start treating the sunnis fairly
they're now reaping the whirlwind

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidblair/100276799/when-the-iraq-crisis-passes-the-kurds

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/18/us-iraq-security-usa-idUSKBN0ET2M420140618

More info on exports from Turkish media:--

'ANKARA – It was announced yesterday that oil from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) will continue to be exported via the southern Turkish port of Ceyhan amid chaos caused by Islamic State of Iraq and the Syria (ISIS) militants. Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said a third tanker carrying KRG oil stored in Ceyhan would transport oil for sale on the international market on June 22. "A third tanker is scheduled on June 22 to export the oil coming from northern Iraq," Yıldız told reporters yesterday in Ankara.'

'Irbil-based Kurdish news portal Rudaw reported on Sunday that Kurdish oil, the sale of which was impeded by Baghdad and Washington, has been sold to buyers in Austria and India.'


TTp://www.dailysabah.com/energy/2014/06/17/krg-oil-export-via-ceyhan-to-continue-despite-unrest-in-iraq

What seems to behind testerdays rise?
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One of the most controversial bosses of a London-listed company is on the verge of stepping down following a long campaign from City investors over lavish pay and weak governance.

Sky News has learnt that directors of Gulf Keystone Petroleum has been holding talks this week about the terms on which Todd Kozel, its chief executive, would step down.

In a statement, a spokesman for the company said:

"Todd is the CEO. At this point there is no deal for him to step down."

The discussions about Mr Kozel's departure could result in an announcement as soon as Friday, but could still fall apart without agreement about his exit package.

Gulf Keystone's shares have been hit recently by their exposure to the turmoil in Iraq, as well as company-specific issues including a warning that payments for exports would be delayed.

Earlier this week, the company announced that Ewen Ainsworth, its finance director, was stepping down and that a search for his successor had been launched.

If he does agree to step down, Mr Kozel is likely to receive a significant payoff, which could fuel further investor anger.

Some board members are keen to make an announcement about Mr Kozel's departure ahead of next month's annual meeting.

A number of Gulf Keystone's biggest shareholders have told the board that they will vote against a number of resolutions, including Mr Kozel's re-election, unless a statement is made confirming his departure.

In recent weeks, investors have stepped up pressure on Simon Murray, the former French legionnaire who chairs the company, to replace Mr Kozel.

Last year, the company reached an eleventh-hour agreement with M&G and Capital Research Group to appoint a group of independent directors in order to avert a widespread rebellion at its AGM.

Much of the tension over Mr Kozel stems from his pay packages in recent years, having been awarded £14.4m in 2011 and £8.8m in 2012 despite ongoing losses.

The shares have fallen from a peak of 465p in 2012 to around 84p, with a 12 month fall of 42%. It has a market value of just under £750m.

Gulf Keystone recently switched its listing from London's junior AIM market to the main market, which imposes more stringent corporate governance requirements.

Earlier this year, it raised $250m of debt to fund development work in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Some bankers believe a sale of the company is inevitable in the medium term.

Sky News reported last month that Gulf Keystone was preparing for Mr Kozel's exit, which the company said at the time was inaccurate.

Author
19:00
Energyvoice version of Todd Talks
Barney71255 2UP

Energyvoice article written slightly different from Sky and don't believe its been posted.....

Pressure mounts on Gulf Keystone boss to resign
Energy Reporter, 20th June 2014

The chief executive of Gulf Keystone (GKP) is reported to be in talks with the company#s board over his departure from the Footsie-listed independent oil and gas.

A number of GKP shareholders are said to want to force Todd Kozel out of the company.

He has been under fire from City investors and a growing body of private investors over excessive pay and poor leadership, having been awarded £14.4million in 2011 and £8.8million in 2012 despite ongoing losses.

This is despite the company having transitioned from a pure-play explorer to a producer of oil in much less time than the industry average.

The shareholders have also reportedly claimed they would vote against a number of resolutions at the next AGM unless a statement was made about the controversial CEO stepping down from his role.

Shares in the company – which recently switched from AIM listing to the main market – have fallen from a peak of 465p in 2012 to around 84p.

Gulf Keystone, which has one of the largest onshore oil discoveries made by any company in many decades in its portfolio, namely Shaikan, currently has a market value estimated at just under £750million.

Earlier this week, the company confirmed finance director Ewen Ainsworth will leave “to pursue other interests” after six years of service.

There is extensive speculation that GKP is among the hottest takeover oil and gas takeover targets in the world. However, despite speculation driving the company’s share price to 460p about two years ago, no-one has pounced.

Prosperity in pipeline for Kurds as the rest of Iraq falls apart

The Times

June 23, 2014 12:00AM


THIS morning in the Turkish port of Ceyhan, the cavernous holds of the United Emblem, a 274m Greek oil tanker, are being filled with $US110m ($117m) of inky crude piped in from Kurdistan in northern Iraq. It may not appear so, but this is a momentous event.

Iraq, the world’s seventh-largest oil producer, is being pushed to the brink of disintegration. The Sunni jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham has taken Mosul, Iraq’s second city.

Amid gruesome images of mass executions of Shia troops and the threat of all-out civil war, oil giants including BP have pulled non-essential workers from the huge oilfields in the south and east of the country. Last week, Barack Obama pledged to send up to 300 military advisers in a desperate attempt to stop the rebels’ advance.

Kurdistan, by contrast, is an ­island of tranquillity. In fact, the region, which has operated semi-autonomously since Saddam Hussein’s downfall in 2003, has never been in a stronger position. The same goes for the handful of companies that operate there, such as Genel Energy, the explorer set up three years ago by former BP boss Tony Hayward and Nat Rothschild, the scion of the banking dynasty. There are two reasons for this: a new pipeline and a decent army.

Last November the Kurds completed a 280km link to the Turkish pipeline system that gave them, for the first time, a direct outlet to the global market.

Iraq has for years threatened to blacklist companies that do business with the Kurdistan Regional Government, based in the capital Erbil. Baghdad claimed the KRG was breaking the law by signing its own exploration contracts and selling oil direct to customers rather than through the national oil company. Most big traders and oil companies complied.

Iraq’s vast fields were in the south and east and firmly under the federal government’s control. For anyone wanting to play there, Kurdistan was off limits.

The new 300,000 barrel-a-day pipeline to the Mediterranean has dramatically reduced Baghdad’s ability to dictate terms.

A disintegrating Iraq means it is even less equipped to fight what now seems inevitable: the birth of Kurdistan as a big oil producer in its own right.

Genel, its largest producer, is at the heart of this transformation. It is among a handful of developers scrambling to ramp up production to meet demand. Traders, meanwhile, are lining up to take what Kurdistan is selling.

An industry source said: “Nobody wanted to commit to buying Kurdish cargoes before because it wasn’t worth what you would lose — access to production from the big fields in the south. But now that it appears this isn’t a blip, the herd is moving.”

This month Ashti Hawrami, the Kurdish oil minister, said he expected to be exporting up to 400,000 barrels a day by the end of the year. If he pulls it off, it would allow the KRG, which still relies on cash from Iraq’s central government, to stand on its own two feet, financially, for the first time in its history. A source close to the Kurdish government said: “We have the wherewithal to achieve economic independence within the next six months.”

Indeed, even as the United Emblem is filling up with only the third Kurdish export cargo, another tanker has arrived in Ceyhan. Iraq has filed for arbitration in the International Chamber of Commerce against Turkey for its role in facilitating the exports, yet such tactics no longer appear to be cowing companies into shunning the Kurds. Indeed, the KRG confirmed last week that it had received payment into its bank account, which it has also set up in Turkey, for its first cargo.

There is another reason that companies are becoming comfortable with Kurdistan: the Peshmerga, the region’s well-trained army, some 200,000 strong. As the ISIS conflagration breaks out across Iraq, Kurdistan has seen no violence.

The Peshmerga have sealed the border and secured additional land, including Kirkuk, site of one of the world’s largest oilfields and a province claimed by both Iraq and Kurdistan. Philip Lambert, founder of Lambert Energy Advisory, said: “Suddenly you have ‘Fortress Kurdistan’, protected by a fine fighting force, and a new Mediterranean-facing export route for crude. This has been 10 years in the making.”

The dangers are manifest and unpredictable. ISIS could turn its attentions to Kurdistan. The 150,000 refugees from Mosul could destabilise the region. But the Kurds appear determined to use the chaos to take even tighter control of their destiny.

Eleven years ago, when president George W. Bush made his infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln after toppling Saddam, Kurdistan produced 2000 barrels of oil a day from one well and exported none. It had been brutalised for decades, had no industry, and its oilfields were unexplored and untapped.

Hawrami engineered the boom that has taken hold since then by inviting in dozens of small developers to find out just how much oil Kurdistan had. The vast quantities they found transformed its prospects.

Iraq has protested every step of the way, blocking or delaying hundreds of millions of dollars in payments for Kurdish oil that it has sold. The impasse has meant that companies have developed fields slowly and produced less. But the pipeline removes a huge kink in the system. Kurdistan can sell a lot more oil — without relying on the federal government’s infrastructure to do it.

In a recent research note, Citigroup said: “The sustainability of oil exports from Kurdistan ultimately lies in either a permanent deal with Baghdad or the establishment of the Kurdish region as an independent sovereign state. We believe that recent developments in Iraq raise the possibility of both of these occurring in the near future.”

Yet there is another big risk. There are more than 40 million Kurds throughout the region, from Turkey to Syria and Iran; five million live in Iraq. The desire for an independent Kurdish state still burns hot for many, especially in southern Turkey, where extremists regularly clash with government forces.

Lambert said: “Will they overreach themselves? The Kurds spent the past decade rebuilding their nation; at this stage a Greater Kurdistan would be a bridge too far. It would destabilise the region and possibly bring new forces upon themselves.”

THE SUNDAY TIMES

ttps://www.zamanalwsl.net/en/news/5509.html

AGM,3 weeks thursday.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/gulf-keystone-petrol--gkp-/rns/notice-of-agm/201406240700263292K/

gulations of such jurisdiction.

25 June 2014

Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd. (LSE: GKP)

Directorate Change

Gulf Keystone Petroleum Limited ("Gulf Keystone" or the "Company") today announces that Non-Executive Director and Deputy Chairman Jeremy Asher and Non-Executive Director John Bell have ceased to be Directors in accordance with the Company's bye-laws. The Company will restart its previously announced search process, with the assistance of Odgers Berndtson, one of the UK's pre-eminent executive search firms, for two new independent non-executive directors, and a further announcement on that process will be made in due course.

The Company also announces that Todd Kozel will retire from his current role of CEO at the Company's upcoming Annual General Meeting on 17 July 2014 and that, subject to Mr. Kozel's re-election to the Board of Directors by shareholders, he will take up a new role of Executive Director. A search for Mr Kozel's replacement is underway with the assistance of an international executive search firm and potential candidates have been identified.

In at 82p

earlier news of CEO to step down, the last time rumours of CEO going the share price went sky high

Up to 88p not long ago, a very strong start of the day
yesterday's strategy on buying is working so far