With the oil literally, reportedly, seeping out of the ground, and a Chinese takeover, reportedly, hint-edly, on the cards, we should note this very strange announcement from Gulf Keystone Petroleum on Monday…

Further to the Company’s announcement dated 22 March 2012, Gulf Keystone was notified by Mr Mehdi Varzi, a Non-Executive Director of the Company (“Mr Varzi”), on 23 March 2012 that on the same day he sold 257,347 common shares of USD 0.01 at an average price of £2.5417 per share. The Company was also informed that, following a request from Mr Ali Al-Qabandi, an Executive Director of the Company (“Mr Al-Qabandi”), the Trustee of the Company’s Employee Benefit Trust (“EBT”) agreed to release 1,000,000 common shares out of the EBT to Mr Al-Qabandi and to transfer the common shares at nil cost to his own account without any common shares being sold. Read more

Gulf Keystone’s Shaikan prospect in Kurdistan just gets bigger and better, seemingly…

The first five tests have been conducted in the northern “footwall” – on the lower side of the inclined fault bounding the Shaikan structure. This is the first occurrence of flow from the footwall and proves an extension of the Triassic and Jurassic reservoirs outside the central part of the structure. The latest test (Test 6) is being conducted in the “hanging wall” (the upper side of the inclined fault) from a new reservoir in the uppermost Sargelu formation which had not been previously flow tested. The test is ongoing and rates in excess of 4,000 boepd have been recorded. Read more

H/T @real_taxloss

 Read more