Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
"Removing legal obstacles to the Oil Ministry's transactions with companies investing in the Kurdistan region".
Seems like a another Iraqi trouble making politician had his complaints rejected.
Its clear where the obstacles lie, little wonder XOM have pulled out completely from Iraq.
They say they are working towards a solution, they are lying. Not long ago they were trying to blame Turkey for the delays when all along it has been Iraq.
https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/32535-%E2%80%98The-ball-is-in-Turkey%E2%80%99s-court%E2%80%99,-says-Iraqi-oil-official-on-resumption-of-Kurdish-oil-export
However now the unused pipeline is costing 1M a day plus a Billion $ a month. Already 8 Billion dollars lost, plus costs and they have held many meetings and achieved nothing concrete bar "working together and God willing".
Well the waters not flowing from Turkey either now the "sign of good faith that they asked for has clearly been false hope for Turkey.
Now they offer the IOC's much less per barrel than they are paying for easy crude extraction in known oilfields in Iraq south. Then talk rubbish about illegal contracts in Kurdistan.. Clearly target is aimed to destroy the kurdish economy, and they are supposed to represent all Iraqis, and are trying to build world trust...
Believe they are now the worlds laughing stock and no country really trusts them despite what they say when sat together at the almost daily biscuit munching meetings.
They will yield because the costs are becoming intolerable for Iraq, just we really see that they don't want to, so certainly cannot be trusted at all.
I think in a nutshell current sales do not warrant anything near the amounts that our board are paying themselves.
In effect the rights issues with further stock dilution is being pocketed by the board while sales languish.
When I hear of part timers on six figures, then hear of extra costs also into 6 figs via their own consultancy services alarm bells are ringing loudly.
Be very much on guard guys.....I really mean this for the holders with serious skin in the game because there are many very nice genuine investors on here..
Because I've see this kind of behaviour before, when the company has decent assets but for whatever reasons its unable to really take off, those in charge recognise it but then milk it for as much as they can get away with, until the music stops then shareholders are penniless.
Clearly not the case here, ?????
However my employed matchbox seller has gone a couple of friends that live in Spain and France and if I also pay them £30 a year they will market our matches there, trouble is they are also only selling a few a year and I've had to send lots of stock, which has a shelf life as the matches go damp, so might end up "striking off" unsold matches. At current doubling of annual sales on this singular product it will take 6 years to break even.
Hi Mikodx,
Your attempt to critic my post is wrong , my comments was as follows......" I can share TW's frustration that solid sales are not increasing at anywhere like most investors would like to see".
I stand by my post because although sales doubled last year sale numbers are terrible in my eyes as an investor.
Like saying my employed matchbox seller who I pay £30 a year sold 2 matchboxes a year last year now managed to sell 4 for 50p profit on his sales this year.
Then you as shareholder in the matchbox business say you are happy , with that steady growth and better than no growth at all.?????? the percentages quoted are similar?
One million a day lost, just because they are trying the cheat the oil companies out of their legal and rightful share of the crude extracted.
Money the Iraqi people cannot afford to lose just due to the stupidity of those in charge.
Pressure building on them all the time.
There is a balancing act to be achieved where cutting edge products are being introduced and marketed which ideally should be completed by a top notch team which isn't available for peanuts.
However while I'm sure shareholders will be happy with this expenditure for a while as long as they see solid material results coming in, which warrant these costs.
Believe the Croda deal most certainly only requires minimal input as its almost "in house".
I can share TW's frustration that solid sales are not increasing at anywhere like most investors would like to see. I believe if sales numbers were increasing at an exponential rate this subject would most certainly not have been raised.
However reality must be faced that for some reason sales are not really catching on, its been the same since launch , what 2-3 years ago now. Unless something changes just selling in more avenues is unlikely to dramatically increase sales.
Almost needs to be prescribed to sufferers from GP's. It would take off then, however getting to that position means jumping high hurdles and deep pockets.
I agree that anyone who got scaled back in the recent rights issue that this is a good time to make up that shortfall because nothing has materially changed with our company. Also a good position from a traders perspective as this dip is probably transitional.
I also believed that the 20t scale up was done ages ago, indeed it was discussed probably three years ago now, might be incorrect on this but that was my perspective.
Hi Swell,
They are most certainly feeling the pain, with a $8B loss of earnings and counting coupled with unused export pipeline penalties.
Throw in local crop failure due to Turkey holding the water in its dams because they wont export Crude oil, and locals hungry and unpaid salaries and a totally different picture emerges.
Our management team have actually done a very good job, keeping a bit below the radar and having a collective spokesman to prevent being singled out and penalised. Its taking a long time but the rewards are most certainly worth holding out for. The IOCs are in a relatively good position and attempts to force them into poor terms with new contracts by financial blackmail are not working. As a serious shareholder our board has my full support.
Https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-crude-production-september-rose-monthly-record-eia-2023-11-30/#:~:text=NEW%20YORK%2C%20Nov%2030%20(Reuters,Administration%20data%20showed%20on%20Thursday.
In my book top marks for the Yanks managing to increase shale oil yet again, wasn't that long ago that they surpassed 10M BOPD.
Clearly we see that without them OPEC would have crude oil at $150 plus dollars a barrel right now and we would all be paying handsomely to line the purses of the OPEC members.
Saw shale oil estimates of 200B plus barrels in USA alone so wont like the UK deplete the fields.
Renewables are also ramping up quickly as we move to EV's. Seen the latest plans for 900Mtr offshore wind turbines and they are very impressive indeed, coupled with these not so mini Rolls Royce neuc reactors, self sufficiency for UK is becoming strong probability. Yes we will still require oil and chemical products but in vastly reduced quantities.
By OPEC keeping crude in the ground foolishly thinking they might utilise it in the future its allowing and causing even more USA production. Without crude sales Iraq which hasn't currently even got electricity for half a day will not develop much at all. Its reported there especially in Kurdistan that companies like ours are producing crude while flaring massive quantities of gas, flashing off diesel in the local teapots, then selling that diesel to the locals so they can power highly polluting and inefficient generators to generate home electricity to keep freezers etc working.
They are also collectively pretty thirsty, so local crude rates are increasing.
SOMO in Iraq is now in charge of "OIL and GAS", so that actually puts them in control of electricity production, so again the blame for poor supply falls at their feet.
History of honouring contracts is essential for any company be it Chinese or Brazilian building gas fired boilers to produce electricity for them.
Now 8B dollars lost on crude flow.. will we see 9B$ ???
If you graph out the current increases in sales and profit even allowing the decent annual percentage increase to continue, its pointing at several years just to achieve profitability on current sales.
Clearly would require a few more rights issues in the interim as well.
Does appear that everything depends on Croda currently.
Slightly O/T, but demonstrates the levels of corruption in Iraq.
https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/291120231
Also reports that Kurdistan only getting 7 hrs of electricity a day. While the IOC's flare off loads of gas which could easily be used to generate essential power...
Only snag...
Needs western investment to make it happen, because it wont happen without it. Just need to build contract confidence, because no one will invest millions in generation for them just to see them alter contract terms when the generating station is finished....
Another clear point how full adherence to contractual obligations is essential....
Everyone invested right now knows the risks and the rewards, its becoming a bit to tight to call because its quite feasible that coupled with the strong pressure that Turkey, Erbil and the IOC's are jointly bringing to bear on Baghdad, (although acting independently for self interest ).
Then throw in on top of that the 8$Billion product loss, and counting and unused pipeline fees it looks really bad for the holdouts in Badghad.
Next throw on top loss of reputation and face as appearing to clearly be the cause of all the problems, and the echoed loss of international reputation as trying to alter fully legal London contracts after oil has been struck to further line their own pockets.
This will have long lasting repercussions on other oil and gas deals as well as other services, while Iraqi employees go unpaid and resentfulness towards them is recognised increasingly by the general population.
Attempts to blame others like Turkey for delay have failed.
Attempts to financially subjugate the operating OIC's by refusing and delaying exported crude have also failed as alternate trucking operations into local markets and most certainly beyond have backfired as every one of them are reporting increasing crude sales and income ad can hold out at current increasing rates indefinitely.
They meet early next month, highly possible that a long term deal might be struck then which will set up the IOC companies for the long term and keep everyone bar the Baghdad politicians happy.
Spot on space Tomato,
Now we are almost starting to see the first signs of desperation for our crude, now its clearly a $8Billion avoidable loss to Iraq and counting more every hr.
Also reports that the IOC's will be in meetings to discuss matters in the next few days. They are owed a huge amount of money which gives them lots of firepower to hammer home strong terms.
Even if it was something like this.....all contracts adopted and recognised by Baghdad. and prompt future crude payments agreed if the owed back payments are forfeited? ...big pill to swallow there, but its happened before with our company with a KRG deal..
How would we react to that one.... no "contracts are illegal", all above board...Believe share price reaction would be highly positive indeed.
Iraq seeks to bring in line Kurdish contracts to ones similar to Iraqi ones....If companies like GKP had hit only dusters or wells with oil that wouldn't yield crude would Iraq compensate shareholders for their losses......clearly no..
However southern contracts with huge known oilfields posed no risk ..so smaller rewards.
I support going to arbitration over this, because I believe they will yield before this happens as they want the water from Turkey and Turkey wants Kurdish crude. If they don't the west will withdraw future help, and they will be forever branded as corrupt.
Hi Space tomato,
Nope very long and strong here mate. Although my last post outlined serious issues at least I cannot be accused of ramping.
It does good to post facts on how their behaviour is seen in the west. It does get back to them.
Many on here might scoff at this fact and I never believed it myself until something I once posted on LSE became a heated discussion point between a CEO and their Arab clients.
Every post that appears on LSE between UK companies and where they have business in Arab counties is read and examined by individuals paid by certain Arab countries and reports made of those comments and fed back to the Arab paymasters.
Sounds a bit James Bond but I swear its true and the following is factual and happened to me.
A company called OPTIbiotics marketed a slimming product in the far East. I posted on that company's share chat on LSE an off the cuff throwaway comment, about hoping that Mohammed liked his many wives fat. No insult was intended by me, but I should have used nicer words, which was my error. However it did get fed back to those selling the product and led to a 30 min conversation from the company CEO and his Arab customer who were claiming racial abuse. Think common sense prevailed in the end, but it was not seen like that initially and I was pretty stunned to see that just a throwaway comment on here could be blown up into a pretty big thing, and that all these posts are being combed through.
So now you see why I often post things about how Iraq is seen in the west when they want to try and alter contracts after the company and its shareholders have risked significant capital, explored and found oil, and many original holders here still have huge losses.... so important to keep contracts as is even if they do give considerable advantage over some in Iraq, where they sign up to extract easy oil in a known oilfield.
Its all smoke and mirrors from Baghdad, deliberate delays without any intension of ratifying the Kurdish contracts unless they have to. All the while smiling and being as two faced as we know the Iraqis can be.
Little wonder why few companies in the west want to do business with them, corrupt as hell and only themselves to blame.
Turkey is loosing money with no crude oil flowing, and its already found out from Iraq that the true consequences of leaving the dam water flowing for a month " as an act of goodwill "gets you in Iraq....nothing.
Suspect the IOC's know the same for crude exports...thats why its not happening.. they would just take the crude for nothing , or paltry change and trouser the real profits like the corrupt politicians they are.
So the water flows have reduced and its now being used as a pressure lever on Baghdad.
If we look at current prices local heavy crudes are fetching decent prices,
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/#Brent-Crude
Si Iraqi Basrah heavy is selling at $78.60 dollars a barrel and tat has a API of 23.6 and 4.2% sulphur which is loaded.
Not far to truck it at all, bearing in mind they are chucking all the HFO out of the teapots and into the crude pool actually making it heavier, and skimming the best off the top.
Easy money to be made where wages and transport costs are some of the cheapest in the world.
May well turn out that the essential continued water flow from Turkey proves to be the key to getting agreement on this whole fiasco of entirely Iraq's making , right from starting a court case really out of spite and hatred. Now throw in a $8 loss in income, and even though they might have won some case damages, they have lost.
Must admit as a GKP investor, I never saw this as the lynch pin if that what it turns out to be. Bet most investors didn't either.
Nice to see Suduni requesting co-operation on the subject of water. They may have "forgotten" that Turkey opened the dams for them this summer to prevent the crops failing in Iraq "as an act of good faith".
Turkey wants to see the crude flowing, water is the lever.
Iraq, may hate the kurds, call the IOC contracts illegal. Deliberately stall talks with the KRG and ignore the IOC's trying to force on them very poor and resisted new contract terms.
They might even as some here say, call the Kurdish crude cuts and contribution to OPEC quota cuts, and refuse to pay the IOC's for crude oil delivered but not paid for.. They might even live with the financial loss from Kurdistan and the penalties from the unused pipeline.
However they Cannot make the water flow from Turkey, despite everything and they need it to flow.
So dragging and screaming behind closed doors...they will have to give in.