Irish Involvement in Iraqi Oil.

international | environment | news report

Saturday July 10, 2004 13:16

by iosaf - the ipsiphi

With the news that the Iraqi administration wishes to fill Oil supply / processing tenders by August

I thought to profile one of the companies which is unusual in that it has made bids for all three available contracts, and interesting in that it is Irish registered.

And that it's annual stock-holders meeting which allows the owners of the 55,913,669 shares to discuss policy, profit and direction will be held on Monday July 12th 2004.

Petrel Resources PLC, with offices at 162 Clontarf Road, Dublin 3, Ireland was set up in 1982. It moved from London’s Ofex Market to the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in August 2000.

It's primary concern is Iraq, and it's workers have been active in that country since the beginning of the conflict bringing the world recognised "huckster celtic Tiger charm" to the negotiation tables of the Sheraton Hotel Baghdad.

In June 2003, it's managing director David Horgan, made the six-hour journey by car from Amman in Jordan to Baghdad.
Billeted at the Sheraton hotel in downtown Baghdad, he donned an Irish soccer jersey and, armed only with his camcorder, left the relative safety of the compound to get an important letter printed for a business meeting the following morning.

“I went down a side street to get the letter printed and when I came out, a number of armed men of military age approached me and asked me in perfectly good English where I was from,” Horgan recalls. “When I told them I was from Ireland, one of them shouted from the back, ‘Ah, Roy Keane’, and we all laughed.”

Horgan has spent the past four years trying to tie up an oil exploration licence in Iraq. Now, with Saddam out of the way, he believes that Petrel, a tiny oil player on the world stage, is on the cusp of something really big.

Why?

Because the Oil Giants don't really want to deal with the first Iraqi contracts, they are quite small, and Petrel have had almost five years experience with the Iraqis singing their first deal with Saddam In March 2002.

The company agreed a contract with the Iraqi oil ministry for exploration and development on Block 6 in the western desert, an area viewed in the industry as one of the world’s most exciting prospects. All the contract needed was Saddam’s signature which, unfortunately for Horgan and his shareholders, never materialised...

But work went on, whilst it had also been seeking an agreement to develop three existing oil fields in Southern Iraq while applying for exploration acreage in the Western Desert.
Iraq has known reserves of 123 billion barrels, the second largest repository in the world after Saudi Arabia which is believed to hold 265 billion barrels. But most of Iraq’s oil is in the east of the country. The Western Desert has hardly been explored. The Saddam Hussein authorities were keen for new exploration rather than the reworking of existing but run-down fields.

With the fall of Saddam, Petrel, whilst still mapping in Block 6, has dusted off its plans to revive two wells in Southern Iraq. It had completed, at a cost of $350,000, a feasilbility study on these two fields, known as Subba and Lohais, located close to the border with Kuwait. These fields used to once produce 140,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd). Before the War they were down to 25,000 bopd. According to Petrel chairman John Teeling, by mid 2003 they were producing a trickle. They could quickly be bought back to a level where their output would be 100,000 bopd, Petrel believes.

And they're putting a lot into it.

Mr Horgan, has now had six visits to Iraq since the fall of Hussein, and has been looking at fresh fields in the north of the country. Petrel’s engineers have prepared a proposal to develop the Khurmala Dome of the Kirkuk oil field. Petrel has raised £959,500 by an institutional placing.

You may watch the Stock of it's rivals which are listed in London in the Oil and Gas sector here-
http://focus.comdirect.co.uk/en/quick/uk/index.html?Show=main.html&sym=UB07.ISE

You may read lots about the company at it's website here-
http://www.petrelresources.com

You may be interested to know Petrel has also set up the Ireland-Iraqi Trading Company to exploit trade between the EU and Iraq in dairy and beef products, pharmaceuticals and certain types of machinery and supplies in return for oil uplifts under the UN Memorandum of Understanding. The Company also has operations in Sudan and Syria.

But that these operations are not so easy to pin down.

other links-
www.oilbarrel.com - oilbarrel.com is an editorially-led website for those interested in the oil industry.

www.rigzone.com - Your gateway to the Oil and Gas Industry

last link is to Petrel's 2003 report.

www.petro21.com - the global petroleum and energy portal strategy, knowledge, networks

www.energy365.com - an internet-based oil and gas industry consultancy

www.uk-analyst.com - provides free market rounds up and stock tips from industry experts.

www.advfn.com - Share prices, company and market news, charts and a custom monitoring service.

www.uk-wire.com - Ulitmate Company Announcement Service