Member Info for Lord-Gideon

I can't agree, even if production is resumed at those levels the mere ticking of the clock towards pipeline closure and the reigniting of all the political shenanigans it would cause, will depress the price further on this, uncertainty being the bigger killer. Yes if I'm wrong and they pull a rabbit out of the hat on July 26th then I'll have missed the boat, but at least I won't have lost anything. I'd say the odds favor at least some months loss and disruption before we get back to business as usual, usual being around 2022 before they first shut it. They were happy days I'd love to see back.

I can't agree, even if production is resumed at those levels the mere ticking of the clock towards pipeline closure and the reigniting of all the political shenanigans it would cause, will depress the price further on this, uncertainty being the bigger killer. Yes if I'm wrong and they pull a rabbit out of the hat on July 26th then I'll have missed the boat, but at least I won't have lost anything. I'd say the odds favor at least some months loss and disruption before we get back to business as usual, usual being around 2022 before they first shut it. They were happy days I'd love to see back.

As much as that would be common sense I don't think, like so much of the time it isn't, common sense is legally permitted. We get a lot of statements from the governments involved saying our companies have agreed to things which turn out not to be true. We need to see the RNS till we know. In time we should get back to full production and have a pipeline but that time might be quite long. For now this silence should cause the price to drop and allow us all to top up cheaply. That's what I'm waiting for as this part of the world doesn't solve major issues in a weekend.

And in other news, Turkey said there will be one very big obstacle in 5 weeks time.

So what of the areas not under federal control, such as Iran, Turkey or even rural parts of Iraq? Also isn't this about the 4th or 5th story with exactly the same promise in the last 3 months? Curious they feel the need to keep repeating it, almost as if the companies don't believe them enough to restart production. Speaking of which, where's that RNS saying we are back in business.......

Exactly as I feared. You don't hire staff to spend weeks getting it all up and running just to shut it down again because as we can all see, there is no export agreement 5 weeks from now. Lets just step back and review the changes since the pipeline was first reopened after the last shutdown:

1. Pipeline agreement cancelled, perfectly clear our side will have to pay more to use it IF/when a new treaty is made - Worse state than before

2. Auditors report that was commissioned to determine how much we should really be paid per barrel, expected March 2026, still nowhere to be seen - Worse state than before

3. Solid political arrangement between Erbil and Baghdad, still no where near being resolved just endless meetings. - Same state as before

4. Iraqi oil from the south looking to escape by other routes such as ours bypassing the kurdish part of the pipeline and using up some of our potential capacity. - Worse state than before

5. Payment of arrears plus interest, not a chance in hell its going to happen after all this time. - Worse state than before.

6. Production still offline even for trucking operations. - Worse state than before and even the state before that when the pipeline was closed.

7. Current income negative and cash in the bank dwindling, reduced dividend and the next one will rightly be scrapped altogether. - Worse state than before.

8. Threat of terrorist attacks significantly raised. - Worse state than before.

9. Iran sanctions being lifted should a deal be done will, in the medium to long term, significantly reduce the PoO while we missed out on the high water mark. - Worse state than before

Add all this up and the share price has remained more or less exactly where it was in Sept 2025 when it was reopened. What do those who are still buying at the current price think would constitute real bad news?

Which would mean carrying on under the current terms which is exactly what Iraq wants, so they would not make any real effort to come to new terms. Turkey will tell them no more oil till a new deal is struck, otherwise why trigger the ending and refuse an extension. Ask what has Iraq been doing for the last 11 months since they knew about this to do a new deal? Nothing, so Turkey is going to assert they have the whip hand now.

It's a point not just of disagreement but one of law in this case, so unless Turkey changes its mind and agrees an extension or a new treaty is agreed then it has to close. Turkey have already closed it for 2.5 years before so why do you think they would keep it open for an extension given their determination to get better terms? And if a new treaty is to be written that can't be done in 5 minutes, especially in this part of the world. It would have to be more or less written by now and awaiting whatever authorization is needed in both countries. So far there have been no reports of any kind to even indicate it is being worked on to my knowledge. Iraq is going to be taken to the cleaners with whatever new deal is eventually agreed on so they will have to be forced into it by months, perhaps longer, of no oil flowing till they realise they must agree to whatever Turkey want.

When/if production does restart, we will have a few weeks before it's back to trucking remember, the new elephant in the room is the pipeline treaty expiring and Turkey not prepared to renew it unless very harsh demands are met. Don't forget to factor that into your calculations on what our resumed production will be worth.

Emphasis on the words US companies. The three listed by name do not cover us or Genel etc. And even then how is Baghdad able to GUARANTEE security to anybody and how are they all going to export post July 27th? All of this is just words leaving us still in real trouble.

Yep just as I feared, and we know that Turkey have form in closing the pipeline for months on end losing money themselves in order to get a better deal. So I expect in 6 weeks either Baghdad will have to give big concessions to them, a lot of which will come out of our profit margins, or the pipeline gets shut to all oil, not just that from KRI. How long was the previous closure, 2.5 years?! Looks like we may well spend some time barely making money with trucking operations again. Imagine how much more Iraq would have been screwed had this agreement expired round about February and then all oil exports got shut down. The Turks have seen this and are going to exploit it for all its worth.

And is losing money every day due to no production, the auditors report 6 months overdue and the usual arguments about when production will be safe to resume not being resolved. And if a deal is struck then how much we will get paid per barrel. All against a backdrop of falling oil price which is necessary before we can be safe to resume production. Best we can hope for is a good news bad news day in the not too distant future: production resumed, price per barrel now down and we missed out on the main oil producer harvest time.

Now Iran is evacuating oil workers abroad with the stated aim of making the arab oil facilities legitimate targets of war. They won't just stop here, it puts our facilities and the pipeline right in the line of fire, facilities that have even poorer defences than the residential areas of Tel Aviv which is still getting hit hard. Seriously, those buying, my hats off to you for courage but we've had much brighter days and the price has tanked. There's something I don't know and I'd love to find out what.

Indeed, so with Kirkuk pumping hell for leather and filling the pipeline to capacity, what spare capacity does that leave for GKP, Genel and others for when we consider it safe to resume operations? Answer, Zero!

So it will either be back to local sales, trucking it across the border or we wait till the south reopens and takes Kirkuk oil away again.

Hold on, a few issues first.

1. Kirkuk oil going through pipeline, not ours.

2. This agreement is only temporary, once the crisis is over we will resume operations, the PoO will drop back and the temp agreement will cease. More meetings needed to make it permanent and we know how long these rounds of meetings lasts. Years and they only agree to schedule another one.

3. We could still have months of potential drone/terror attacks to avoid.

4. Turkey hasn't yet agreed a new export agreement, suppose Baghdad decides more southern oil should flow north in case history repeats itself rather than ours.

5. They will not announce a dividend tomorrow, they just can't under the current situation! They will say something along the lines of - "we will continue to monitor the situation and look to return free cash to shareholders when possible through dividends and buybacks with regular reviews of the payment policy later this year" You get the idea.

On the other hand if Baghdad still doesn't blink in this situation, putting political hatred above financial interest which is common enough in this part of the world, then that tells you they will never allow a long term agreement, especially when things are more stable and the southern ports reopen. I'd say this is an all or nothing moment.

I think that would be very foolish if they did commit to a dividend this month, we've been losing money all March, no way they can say for sure if and for how long we can start pumping again, arrears still outstanding and even less likely to be paid now the whole of Iraq is financially going to the wall and the ever present possibility the pipeline or a production facility could be taken out for months. I'd wait till at least a plausible ceasefire is in place and more info on whats happening with our contracts before I started spending our pipeline shutdown reserve fund. Plus what are they going to fund the field development plan with, we don't want to go back to borrowing again.

Share buyback taking advantage maybe, I recall the recent RNS updates casually mentioned something about maintaining the right to do so at opportunistic moments.

Wow, 0.75% of the company and a very rounded number too, is there someone out there looking to build a controlling stake in this firm while the SP OUGHT to be cheap for the foreseeable future? In as much as anything can be foreseen in war.

It could be some firms are buying up oil stocks in general due to oil price rises and not looking at the specific issues we have. Maybe we actually are pumping oil and its being kept secret to avoid making us a prime target for attack under the fog of war. Maybe the USA has offered to prop the share price up so the firms survive as they will be needed long term. Or just maybe people believe we will be fine it will all be over in a few weeks and with Iran tamed the ICG will have no choice but to give favorable terms to the kurdistan oil firms. If its the latter then it takes some guts to buy in so early as an awful lot can go wrong.