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.

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

going places this afternoon 93.50p now

Possible we break £1 today?

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Looks that way.

but is it just overexcitement?
for sure the dreaded TK has been booted, but does that change anything radically?
certainly makes the company more "respectable", but given that it is now admitted that shaikan was over-hyped, what is now fair value?

Easy up easy down so far today, it was pushed all the way to 108p but now is 100p

Comments on the Mail of Chevron stakebuilding ...........

Seemingly in complete disarray after the ousting of charismatic founder Todd Kozel as chief executive and the departure of non-executive director Jeremy Asher, Kurdistan-focused oil firm Gulf Keystone gushed 14.75p to 95p on revived bid hopes. Rumours were rife that Chevron was stakebuilding.

Daily Mail - MARKET-REPORT

can one believe anything the Mail says on anything? :-)
anyway, would be deighted if accurate for once

Bouncing back after the marked down/profit taking of earlier on

The Kurds can sell the oil legally .Federal Court rules against Oil Minister . Big kick in the nuts for Maliki.

Good news for(court ruling),still not to get too carried away though,what with the ISIS
probmem?

Share price has gone better than the morning spike and now around 110p+

Letter from Chairman.


Dear Shareholders
Since our Notice of the Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) was sent to shareholders earlier this week, we have announced a number of changes to the Board and therefore I felt that I should write to you to provide an update.
Gulf Keystone is in a period of change that represents the start of a new and exciting phase of our Company’s development. However, one of the biggest changes in our Company is the recently announced retirement of Todd Kozel as Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”). Todd’s contributions to Gulf Keystone are too numerous for me to recount in this letter. The Board has been conducting succession planning since December last year when Todd contacted me about retiring as CEO and transitioning to a different role in the Company. As part of this process, the Company has had a dialogue with the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Natural Resources (“MNR”) to seek its views on potential options. In recent correspondence with the Board the MNR stressed the importance of Todd remaining with the Company in a senior capacity if he were to retire as CEO. The MNR considers the on-going involvement of Todd necessary to preserve continuity for Gulf Keystone and ensuring maintenance of the strong relationship between it and the Company. As a result of Todd’s new role, the Company will also still be able to benefit from his unique expertise on strategic issues and his experience in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to help the Company continue to develop our assets in the region.
Based on its recent communications with the MNR, our key stakeholder, and the valuable contribution that Todd can continue to make, the Board views it as essential that Todd remains on the Board as an executive director upon his retirement as CEO. Given Todd is standing for re-election as a director at the AGM on 17 July, I felt that shareholders should be made aware of the position of the MNR and I would like to reiterate that the Board strongly urges shareholders to vote for Todd’s re-election.
With Todd retiring from the CEO role, our current Chief Operating Officer, John Gerstenlauer will assume the role of acting CEO and our current Financial Controller, Mary Hood has taken up the role of acting Chief Financial Officer. Both of these executives have proven their talents and abilities and the Company is in good hands. We have retained a world-class
executive search firm to recruit permanent replacements for these two critical positions, and we look forward to keeping shareholders updated on our search. For the CEO and CFO positions, we will seek to identify and hire executives with extensive experience managing technical and financial operations for a large publicly traded oil company and developing an asset of the size and scale of the Shaikan field.
We will be reinforcing the Board with the nominations of two new independent non-executive directors and we have already identified several excellent candidates. The end result of this process will be a Board united in its focus on the continued successful development of our assets in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the creation of shareholder value.
The Company is in a strong position to move forward and grow. Since the start of this year alone Gulf Keystone has moved from AIM to the standard segment of the Official List of the London Stock Exchange, secured full funding to achieve production of 40,000 barrels of oil per day, commenced export sales, established a payment cycle for Shaikan crude oil exports and completely removed the shadow of the Excalibur lawsuit. Those accomplishments leave the Company well positioned to execute our development plan and increase production from the current level of approximately 20,000 barrels of oil per day to 40,000 barrels of oil per day by the end of 2014. The ultimate goal of the Phase 1 of the Shaikan development is to reach 100,000 barrels of oil per day of production. This growth is expected to bring increased revenues and create significant value for our shareholders.
I would also like to update you today on the latest important development concerning the oil export shipments from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq via Turkey. The Kurdistan Regional Government (“KRG”) announced today that the Federal Supreme Court in Baghdad has unanimously rejected the request of the Federal Minister of Oil to rule against the MNR’s current oil exports. This binding ruling cannot be challenged and means that SOMO (the Federal Marketing Agency) and the Federal Ministry of Oil cannot legally prevent the oil exports from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. You can read the KRG’s statement at

Lets hope we've got through all the bad stuff and see what this Company is really worth .

Questor: Gulf Keystone Petroleum remains a sell

The Kurdistan-focused oil group remains volatile and Questor says sell


Unpredictable investors


1. Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP) is a volatile stock. In the past 12 months, shares in the Kurdistan-focused oil group have run as high as 219¾p – in the wake of last September’s key court ruling that confirmed GKP’s ownership of the giant Shaikan field – and have fallen as low as 80p earlier this month, amid concern about the turmoil in Iraq. One of the main reasons for the swings in the share price is that GKP has a large and enthusiastic following of private investors. The stock is frequently a hot topic of conversation on the internet bulletin boards.


Takeover potential

2. The possibility that GKP may be taken over is a major attraction of the shares for investors. The reason the stock jumped after its court victory last year was speculation that GKP had become a bid target. The long-running court case was viewed by many investors as a deterrent to potenital suitors. The speculation has not gone away. Last week, GKP raced higher on renewed deal hopes. Todd Kozel, its founder, confirmed he had retired as chief executive and three other non-executives also resigned, developments that some reckoned could pave the way for a bid.


Turmoil in boardroom

3. That speculation proved unfounded and no approach materialised. Indeed, Questor believes the board turmoil, which included the finance director leaving earlier in June, should be taken as a red flag, rather than a buying opportunity. For example, the status of Mr Kozel remains unclear. He has been a focus of investor ire in the past, with his pay coming in for criticism. While he is stepping back as CEO, he is staying on as an executive director. A letter from GKP to shareholders, released on Friday, clearly indicates that this controversial figure will remain closely involved in the company.


Bear case stronger

4. Questor last looked at GKP on October 10, when the shares were priced at 171¾p. We recommended selling at the time and nothing has happened since to convince us to turn buyers of the stock. If anything, the bear case has strengthened. In March, the group cut the estimated size of its key asset, the Shaikan field. In April, the company sold $250m of bonds but unsettled investors in the process by warning that, if it did not get the debt sale away, it could run out of cash by the end of May. We remain cautious of GKP, even with the shares at these low levels.





http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/questor/10932911/Questor-Gulf-Keystone-Petroleum-remains-a-sell.html

onwards & upwards