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.

Getting Paid

Hawrami said 25 to 26 ships had sailed from Ceyhan and that the KRG had already been paid for the oil it has delivered.

"We got paid for that and indeed we got paid for another 10 ships we haven't yet loaded." As Baghdad has threatened legal action against anyone buying oil from the KRG, the Kurdish tanker sales have often involved a cat-and-mouse game with ship-to-ship transfers, covert deliveries and vessels turning off satellite tanker tracking.

A number of cargoes have gone to Israel, industry sources say and ship-tracking data indicates, while others have sailed to Asia. One 1 million barrel tanker has remained anchored off the coast of Texas for months after Baghdad asked a U.S. court to seize the vessel. The KRG has denied selling oil to Israel.

The KRG has declined to publicly identify any buyers, but Hungary's MOL Group , which has producing assets in Iraqi Kurdistan, said this summer it had taken some of the Kurdish crude for its refinery in Croatia. ...

London-listed companies such as Genel and Gulf Keystone Petroleum are some of the biggest producers in Iraqi Kurdistan. Gulf Keystone last week delayed the release of its interim management statement to Nov. 13, saying it is holding talks with the KRG. Genel is due to report on the same day. ...

(Reporting by Isabel Coles in Arbil, writing by David Sheppard in London; editing by Susan Thomas and David Evans) ((d.sheppard@thomsonreuters.com; +44)(0)(2075421890; Reuters Messaging: d.sheppard.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)

Keywords: IRAQ CRISIS/KURDOIL

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/07/iraqi-crisis-kurdoil-idUKL6N0SX4O20141107


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Nov 7 (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdistan has sold 34.5 million barrels of oil with a value of almost $3 billion since January, the Kurdistan Regional Government said, despite opposition from the federal government to independent oil sales from the region.

The KRG said in a statement on Friday that the proceeds of the $2.87 billion sales were being treated as part of what it claimed as its "constitutional entitlement" of 17 percent of Iraqi government revenues, which it says have not been paid by Baghdad since January.

The KRG said it had received $2.1 billion in cash and $775 million in payments in kind via refined oil product sales. (Reporting by Sam Wilkin and David Sheppard in London; editing by Jane Baird)

'News of the payments comes ahead of trading updates from Genel Energy and Gulf Keystone next week.
Gulf Keystone calculates that it is owed a total of about $250m by the Kurdistan government for production to date, as well as additional sums relating to its investment in the region.
It recently warned that it would have to curtail its production of oil in the region unless an agreement could be reached with the KRG over quicker payment.

Following Friday’s news, John Gerstenlauer, Gulf Keystone’s chief executive, said: “With a regular payment cycle, we look forward to moving forward with our stated ramp up in production from our Shaikan field.”'

Looking forward to Monday should see a quid soon.

Should be an interesting week for sure,with the IRS delayed to correspond with GENL's, come thursday. Still feel the political issues need sorting,before we have any chance of the full value returning.

Sunday Times gossip.

http://www.scoop.it/t/aim-market-gossip



Analysts also expect Genel to unveil a landmark gas supply contract with Turkey. The explorer found a huge gas field it named Miran, but investors are reluctant to assign it a value because it was unclear how, or whether, it woud be developed. The expected deal could value Miran at as much as $2bn ( £1.3bn). Genel’s market value is £2bn.

Genel and Gulf Keystone declined to comment.

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Iraqi PM’s Office: We Will Reach Agreement With Erbil Soon
10.11.2014

BasNews, Erbil

Spokesman for the Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office, Saed Hadisi has said that there is hope in the search for a solution to the disputes between Baghdad and Erbil.

He believes that the federal government of Baghdad has ’good intentions’.

Tariq Gardi, Kurdish Member of Parliament in Baghdad and member of the negotiation committee of the Kurdistan Regional Presidency with Baghdad, told BasNews on Monday, that Hadisi has said, “The federal government of Baghdad will make serious efforts to resolve the problems between Erbil and Baghdad. I hope the negotiations between them will soon restart and the Baghdad government will make more serious efforts.”

“This is the first time a high level official has made a statement like that. It gives us hope that we can resolve the deep-rooted disputes. We hope this speech will be translated into actions in order to restart the negotiations, especially in regards to the budget,” said Gardi.

He continued, “When we voted for Haidar Abadi as Iraqi PM, he set a time limit for solving the disputes [addressing Kurdish demands] within three months, which is a good thing. We hope the government will solve the problems in the remaining time.”

Gardi mentioned that in the meeting between the Kurdistan Region Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani and the Iraqi Parliament Speaker, Salim al-Jiburi, Barzani said,

“If necessary, I will go to Baghdad, but I asked Jiburi to resolve the issues on time [as planned].”

http://basnews.com/en/News/Details/Iraqi-PM-s-Office--We-Will-Reach-Agreement-With-Erbil-Soon/42066

Phone Call with JG Today
• JG was bullish on the recovery factor based on his experience with the Masik? Field in Yemen which he described as starting out at 240,000 bopd and still producing about 200,000 bopd 18 years later. It was of a similar gravity and very low GOR but the wells still produced at high rates through the fracture network. However this must be going back a few years as I can’t find any mention of it and the entire country only produces 400-500,000 bopd nowadays. We also discussed recovery mechanisms but he asked for his speculative comments not to be put in a blog.

• He was also confident that the drilling performance would improve markedly on Sh-2 now they know what they are dealing with. There was a lost circulation zone at about 500m that caused a lot of difficulties. If this is known ahead of time normal procedure would be to plan the casing program with this in mind and run casing once through the zone and cement off the trouble zone behind pipe. If you have not planned for this and do set pipe this means that you have used up one of your casing strings and of course the subsequent hole size is reduced. The consequence is that you have one casing string too few and run the risk of not being able to get to TD. GKP elected not to run pipe and soldiered on to the next planned casing point running into difficulty drilling ahead. They will amend their casing program on Sh-2 to avoid the difficulties of Sh-1.

• We also talked about the famous pressure gradient plot. He said the pressure information was extremely good and there was high confidence in the data. He inferred that DGA had seen it and in their report they refer to GKP’s pressure build up analysis but don’t say that they have interpreted it independently. He also said they could see tidal effects which is a bit strange in the middle of the desert!

• JG said they were mostly focused on proving areal extent in Sh-2 and not actively searching for the OWC. It would be ideal for the biggest movement in share price if they could position it sufficiently down dip to do both. It will be down dip but finding the OWC does not seem to be in the top priority at the moment.

• It was good to hear GKP have a few people with H2S experience. He was involved in developing the record highest H2S property in the US, 86% H2S. Nasty stuff!
• He confirmed Ewen’s comments about the DGA gas estimates. There was a very good correlation between the JK-1 well and Sh-1 even though they are 26km apart. The high P interval in Sh-1 is a thick interval in JK-1 and led to DGA’s confidence to issue the very significant gas estimates. GKP are planning to have the capability to handle higher pressures than they saw at TD in case they were still in a transition zone when they had to abandon drilling so they should be able to get into the Permian.

• The 5000bopd rates shown for the Butmah in a couple of the recent presentations are a typo. They estimated the rate as nearer to 2000bopd even though it did not flow to surface.
• The test in Sh-1 will comprise a separate 1 day test in each of the DST 2 and 3 intervals. DST 2 only flowed at 120 bbl/d and DST 3 was the Butmah. An ESP will be used to pump the intervals to demonstrate that they can be produced at commercial rates. The extended test will be on the DST 1 interval in the Sargelu that produced at 7400 bbl/d. He implied they would not be pumping this interval which infers that the well was choked back on test if they they think it is capable of the 10,000 bbl/d that has been mentioned consistently in presentations.

• JG was very confident that they would drill the shallow well once the Sh-1 well is put on long term test. I said this would be a useful addition to the OIP at which point he laughed. Apparently they feel (rightly) that they have found a massive amount of oil but every time he speaks to a PI they want more (lol).
• JG said that he has never seen a well like this in his 35 yrs (me too) and that they will be writing papers about the technical analysis of it for years to come. Apparently they all were walking around the office looking like they had won the lottery as the well unfolded.

• On Sh-1 MOL were good partners and didn’t hassle GKP to issue information. On AB-1 MOL are drilling it as a tight hole. JG said they were trying to repay the favour and would issue an RNS when it was required by AIM rules but it sounded like they wouldn’t be trying to broadcast at every opportunity. They will be negotiating the amount of information to be released.
• Finally he mentioned, as did Ewen, that they were looking for opportunities to acquire additional interest in other licences.

A good guy, very accessible. I was most impressed, I called the London office this morning and got a call back within an hour or so from the US at what must have been about 05:30 a.m. That’s being pretty responsive to a shareholder call.

Regards,

Gramacho

One trading day left,interesting time "me thinks".

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The fall off along with increased volume at the end of the day, leads me to think tomorrows news is less positive than one might hope,thats if previous experience is anything to go by?

http://www.investegate.co.uk/gulf-keystone-petrol--gkp-/rns/kurdistan-operational-update/201411130700229258W/

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Predictable after yesterdays finish.

More interested in the fo;;owing.

John Gerstenlauer, Gulf Keystone's Chief Executive Officer commented:

"Gulf Keystone's production operations and export oil sales have continued uninterrupted in 2014. All current production is being exported by truck and these exports are set to increase in the coming months as we are nearing our production target of 40,000 bopd. As we stand by the Kurdistan Region and its people, we welcome the KRG's commitment to putting in place a regular payment cycle for oil exports from the region. As our production increases, we look forward to receiving our full contractual entitlement."

http://www.gulfkeystone.com/investor-centre/gkp-tv-video-player

Kurdistan region, Baghdad reach deal on oil exports and payments

By Michael Georgy and Isabel Coles

BAGHDAD/ARBIL Thu Nov 13, 2014 2:53pm EST


Kurdistan regional government confirms deal with Baghdad over oil exports

(Reuters) - The government of Iraq and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan have reached a deal to ease tensions over Kurdish oil exports and civil service payments from Baghdad, Iraq's finance minister told Reuters on Thursday.

Hoshiyar Zebari said the central government had agreed for the time being to resume payments from the federal budget for Kurdish civil servants' salaries.

Zebari, who is a Kurd, described the step as a "major breakthrough" that would reduce friction between the KRG and Baghdad. He said the payments would cover October and then November.

The deal was reached after talks between Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdel Mehdi and Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani in the Kurdistan region on Thursday.

Baghdad stopped paying for KRG civil servant salaries in protest against the Kurds' exporting oil to Turkey independently.

Under the agreement, Iraqi Kurdistan will give 150,000 barrels per day of oil exports - equal to around half its overall shipments - to the federal budget.

In Arbil, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) confirmed the agreement.

"What they have agreed is that Baghdad will release some funds - $500 million - and the KRG will give 150,000 barrels per day of oil to Baghdad," KRG spokesman Safeen Dizayee told Reuters.

EXPORTS STILL UNDER CONTROL OF KURDS

He said a KRG delegation headed by the prime minister would travel to Baghdad soon to hammer out a more comprehensive deal and the regional government would not hand over control of exports to Baghdad.

A similar agreement was proposed in April but never advanced to a deal.

In July, then Iraqi foreign minister Zebari said the Kurdish political bloc withdrew from the national government in protest against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's accusation that Kurds were harbouring Islamist insurgents in their capital.

The Kurds later rejoined the administration. But tensions persisted.

Maliki, one of the most divisive figures to emerge from the U.S. occupation of Iraq, was later replaced by Haider al-Abadi.

He is seen as a moderate Shi'ite capable of cooperating with Sunni Muslims, Kurds and other sects.

Iraqi leaders are under pressure to bury differences in order to counter Islamic State militants who have seized chunks of the country in the north and west.

There are about 5 million Kurds in majority Arab Iraq, which has a population of more than 30 million. Most live in the north, where they run their own affairs, but remain reliant on Baghdad for a share of the national budget.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Keiron Henderson)

< Derwent i thought i posted that article earler on,seems not?

Hopefully the political breakthrough needed to bring real value to GKP,if so the way would be clear for a major to pick up this amazing asset for peanuts? If so our best
chance of getting value would be a bidding war,

oimho.

Well i topped up earlier as i feel the agreement between ICG and the KRG has been the main reason for a poor SP,only time will tell.With a more positive political environment
i believe the majors are more likely to attempt to purchase this huge asset.

6 0

Baghdad and Erbil Finally Reach Agreement on Budget and Oil
14.11.2014

BasNews, Erbil


After months of standoff between Iraqi central government and Kurdistan Regional government, on Thursday, both side reached a preliminary agreement over longstanding issues of the budget and oil of the country.


According to KRG official statement, as the first development is Iraqi government’s agreement to transfer $500 million to the cash-strapped Kurdish Regional Government.

In return, the Kurdish Regional Government has agreed to put 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day at the disposal of Iraq’s federal government, the statement said.

The breakthrough comes after, Iraqi oil minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi visited Kurdistan region and met with the region’s president Massoud Barzani as well as KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and other senior Kurdish official in aim to solve the enduring oil and budget issues between Baghdad and Erbil.

Sherko Jawdat, the head of oil and gas committee in Kurdistan Parliament said that Baghdad-Erbil long overdue agreement is a welcome and important progress.

Jawdat told BasNews that KRG has agreed to sell one barrels of oil for $111 to Baghdad.

“We have informed KRG that to agree with Baghdad only under one condition if they protect the KRG rights,” said Jawdat from Erbil.

Meanwhile, its expected that in the next a few days, Kurdistan Region PM Barzani will head a Kurdish delegation to visit Iraqi capital Baghdad and in an effort to solve the rest of the issues between Kurds and Baghdad authorities.

In addition, The United States on Thursday welcomed a deal between the Iraqi government and the KRG on the export of Kurdish oil.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called it as an initial step toward a fair and comprehensive solution on the management of Iraq’s oil resources.

’We are encouraged by this development and the willingness of officials in Baghdad and Erbil to address these complex issues directly and earnestly,’ Psaki said.

16:35:28 80.00 161,853 UT 80.00 80.25 Sell.

80p finish,excellent.

Further news next week promised,from karla Lumpa.

16:35:28 80.00 161,853 UT 80.00 80.25 Sell.

80p(+17%) finish,excellent.

Further news next week promised,from karla Lumpa.