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“Saddam’s Lost Oil” and “Iraq just got SCREWED”

What follows is the teaser solution that appeared as part of a Friday File about six months ago — a story about “Saddam’s Lost Oil.” The ad is still circulating, it has changed a bit in tone and text but is pretty clearly still teasing the same oil company operating in Kurdistan.

This first appeared on Friday, November 14 and has not been updated or revised, and I’ve left the original comments in place for your information (and added a couple of my own, down at the bottom). The stock, you will probably be unsurprised to hear, is down quite a bit from its highs.

—–from 11/14/14—–

Now… on to that Christian DeHaemer teaser pitch that everyone’s asking about. Here’s what DeHaemer teased this morning in his article that ran in Energy and Capital:

One Small Company

“There’s one tiny company that has its hands on the lion’s share of the oil in this profit-rich region of Iraq.

“And if that’s not enough, it also has the rights to three other prime chunks of oil-rich land in addition to the one I’ve been telling you about — and ALL of them have the very same oil-promising geography as the first.

“This company is already pumping 40,000 barrels of oil out of the ground on a daily basis, and that number is expected to more than quadruple within 18 months.

“All told, these guys are sitting on a whopping 13.7 billion barrels of oil — a true game changer for such a small company.

“To put that in perspective, Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE: PXD), a company with rights in the Eagle Ford, is sitting on 11 billion barrels of oil. Pioneer has a market capitalization of $23.87 billion.

“For those who don’t know, “market capitalization” is the value you get when you multiply the number of shares outstanding by the price per share. It gives you the total market value of a stock.

“Another well-known company, Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO), has claimed 4.3 billion barrels of oil and has a market capitalization of $21.86 billion….

“The company I’m talking about has a market capitalization of less than $1 billion”

And though the actual ad for Crisis and Opportunity hasn’t circulated as widely, I imagine it will be everywhere over the next few days (unless it doesn’t work or bring in subscribers, I guess) — and I have seen it at least once (you can check it out here).

In that ad he gets more aggressive and calls this “Saddam’s Lost Oil” … here’s how that ad grabs us:

“This tiny company just found out it’s sitting on 14 billion barrels of Saddam’s lost crude

“Note: The last time I found a small company like this, it exploded for 759% gains in less than a year.”

DeHaemer’s teasers have led us to some interesting oil picks in the past, mostly stocks that made big jumps on discoveries — I think he touted Africa Oil before that one drilled its first well (which was a barnburner), as well as older picks Petro Matad in Mongolia (that one did not work out well in the end, though it went up dramatically for months) and Dragon Oil in Turkmenistan. Lots of his picks have gone down too, of course, teased or not, but he has pointed us at a few interesting ones in the past.

So which one is this? A few more clues from the long form ad, just to keep you on the edge of your seat:

“As Iraqi oil fields once again became available to outsiders, the path was paved for one tiny company to get its hands on one of the most incredible oil properties in the world today.

“You see, as the oil giants moved in and put their names all over any oil field they could find, they ended up making the very same mistake Saddam had made years earlier…

“They failed to realize that one of the biggest oil fields on earth was sitting right next to them in northern Iraq.

“But one company wasn’t fooled — the company I’m telling you about today.

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“Instead of trying to play with the ‘big boys,’ these guys took a different tack… and ended up sitting on top of 13.7 billion barrels of crude oil as a result.

“Even better, the oil is proven, easily accessible, and extremely profitable.”

More details? I thought you’d never ask!

“The first exploration well on this property was drilled in 2009 with resounding success.

“In fact, the results were so positive that field experts officially declared this a “world-class discovery.”

“Over the next three years, four more wells were mapped, drilled, and analyzed… and all of them provided the same incredible results as the first….

“You see, there’s one tiny company that has its hands on the lion’s share of the oil in this profit-rich region of Iraq.

“And if that’s not enough, it also has the rights to three other prime chunks of land in addition to the one I’ve been telling you about — and ALL of them have the very same oil-promising geography as the first.

“This is not a play based on speculation, either.

“These guys are already pumping 40,000 barrels of oil out of the ground on a daily basis.

And he goes on about the 759% gains he expects — not because of the specifics of this teased company, but because one of the other small oil stocks he teased back in 2010 (turns out that’s Petro Matad again) had a 759% gain after he recommended it. Which is true. It also had a 99.9% loss in the months and years after those peak gains (my recollection is that the drilling results stunk, among other things) — it peaked around $3.50 a share in the Spring of 2011 but fell 90% over the following six months (and has kept falling ever since).

Not only that, he also teases the possibility of 18,000% gains — based on the fact that during some undisclosed time period, Smith International rose by 18,000%, and it’s also in the oil business (Smith was an oil services/equipment company that merged with Schlumberger in 2010. I assume it really did rise by 18,000% from some point, he says it went from 44 cents to $80 and it was indeed a great growth company for many years, but it might have taken 20 years or more… and it’s got essentially nothing to do with the stock we’re being teased with today.

And DeHaemer’s company is almost certainly a better company than Petro Matad — they’re already producing and have reserves, so it’s not just a speculation on drilling and a breathless Mongolia/China play during the heat of that mania. Though Petro Matad back when we first covered DeHaemer’s teaser in 2010 was a $100 million junior explorer, not a $1 billion stock.

What else do we know about them from Mr. DeHaemer’s ad?

Well, not a lot in the way of clues… but we do get some more hyperbole:

“Your chance to retire on the spot is staring you right in the face. All you have to do is seize the opportunity and run with it.

“It’s like something out of a storybook. If I were dreaming up a perfect environment for banking the biggest profits most of us have ever seen…

“The current opportunity in Iraq is damn close to what that dream would look like.”

Seriously. “Your chance to retire on the spot.”

I know most Gumshoe readers are too cynical to fall for a pitch like that without questioning it, and most of you are too experienced to make big bets on stocks that a pundit says could rise 180X in value — but think about people who are in their 50s and 60s and only have $20,000 saved in their 401(k) and are wondering how they can ever retire. What will they do when they read this kind of pitch? It sounds compelling, there’s some logic in the argument that the company should do well, the company is in fact a real company (as far as I can tell)… but where the hell do you get off calling it a “retire now” stock and hinting at 18,000% returns?

I hate the spiels that give people the “retire now” false hope about a huge overnight profit from a tiny company.

So no, you can’t retire on this stock. Because you’re not crazy enough to bet enough on this one stock to give yourself those kinds of returns, and putting just a 1% position or a 0.5% position in a stock like this means you would “only” increase your overall portfolio by 7% if it has a huge and spectacular run like Petro Matad did, assuming you catch it near the top to sell. If getting a 7% return on your portfolio (or even a 20% return, if all else works well and you make it a much more aggressive 3% position) is enough for you to “retire now”, well, then you can dream. As long as you realize that 700% returns don’t come along nearly as often as they’re hoped for.

Everyone else, relax for a minute and let’s talk about the actual company.

Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP in London, GUKYF on the pink sheets or GFKSY for the 1:20 pink sheets ADR) is the stock DeHaemer is teasing and recommending. They’ve been producing oil through all the craziness in Kurdistan and trucking it out through Turkey, though they haven’t necessarily been getting paid for it all and there’s obviously huge uncertainty — and they do say they’re aiming to boost production to 40,000 bopd by the end of the year (saying that’s what their production is now is an exaggeration, though perhaps not a wild one).

News about some political settlement between Kurdistan and the central Iraqi government regarding oil exports and revenue share has helped to drive the price up substantially today (perhaps helped a little bit by DeHaemer’s enthusiasm, though presumably the “real” news had a much larger impact), you can see the company’s announcement here (that announcement does say they’re “on track” for 40,000 barrels by the end of the year — but current production is averaging just a bit more than half that amount).

Interestingly, for those who are into junk bonds, Gulf Keystone also has some recent debt on the market that hits maturity in three years — coupon is 13% and it’s trading at $82 (per $100 principal), so that would be roughly 20% annual returns from here if they don’t default, the CUSIP is G4209GAB4 if you’re interested in checking it out — it’s small and strange, so it might well be that there isn’t much of it available for trade. Whether that causes your ears to perk up with interest, or whether the 20% implied cost of capital causes you to quake at the huge risk, will probably largely depend on how you feel about oil and about the political situation in Northern Iraq/Kurdistan.

You can see the company’s latest investor presentation here — it’s a couple months out of date now, in that it doesn’t include the recent agreement to get some money flowing from the Kurdistan government for past oil sales, but it gives a good overview of their two main projects and the timeline. They raised over $200 million back in the Spring, when oil prices were much higher (that helped to bring the share price down sharply, it appears), so they are in fine shape as regards their ability to fund their continued ramp-up in production from the Shaikan field — particularly if they’re able to get more of the cash from the Kurdistan government for those exports being trucked through Turkey.

They do have some interest in other blocks in the area that they’re evaluating, and a discovery called Sheikh Adi that they’re appraising now. There’s a presentation that’s much more technical on the Shaikan field here from this past Spring, which is where that “14 billion barrels” number comes from — that’s the gross original oil in place estimate and includes both discovered and proven and probable oil, as well as undiscovered oil that’s expected to be there. It’s also a gross number — Gulf Keystone’s working interest in Shaikan is just over 50%, so you can cut that number in half. And, though they are producing, these big are not reserves. They’re estimates. The “2P” reserves number, adjusted for Gulf Keystone’s working interest, is only 163 million barrels — that’s from just a few wells, and based in just a portion of the oilfield that they think is there, but no one should be using the big numbers and saying they are really sitting on that much oil… that’s the blue sky potential at this point (interestingly, there was a story about the inflated “reserves” numbers that are mentioned by the big shale oil guys, like Pioneer and Marathon… and that seems to be where DeHaemer got his numbers for those two comparisons).

It’s early, and from what I’ve read this really is a big oil field in Northern Iraq/Kurdistan and they will probably increase the reserves considerably at some point — but right now, it seems they’re more focused on producing and expanding production than on booking reserves. The goal is, once they have a reliable source of revenue from selling their production (which they’re a step closer to now as of Thursday’s announcement, though one is cautioned to be wary of these agreements in a very fluid region), to invest that revenue into increasing to a 100,000bopd production rate from the Shaikan field… and then decide what to do with their other blocks and working interests. So unlike a huge discovery that might drive a stock up several hundred percent, what’s really being talked about here is a large existing oil field — what will drive the stock up is if they’re able to actually prove out those reserves, get production doubled by the end of the year (which is very aggressive — that’s less than two months away), and actually get paid for the oil they’re producing. And, of course, avoid any massive outbreaks of violence or political unrest that could shut in production.

Their financials are almost unintelligible, by the way — I don’t see how to even guess at what their margins would be if they hit 40,000 barrels a day, we know very little about what their “steady state” operating costs might end up being, as far as I can tell from skimming through their filings, and the price of oil is obviously falling… and they only report twice a year, since their primarily listing is in London.

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vivian lewis
vivian lewis
November 24, 2014 9:30 am

I am the Sheikh of El-Adi
Your money belongs to me.

stephencmyers
stephencmyers
November 24, 2014 9:55 am

With Genel Energy owed about 180 million and Gulf Keystone owed about 250 million, the promise from Kurdistan of paying 75 million total this month to the oil producers is a welcome start. However, with the contentious politics between Baghdad and the Kurdistan area, we will have to see how this plays out. ISIS is the unknown. The oil also needs to be trucked into Turkey where the oil can be shipped. What kind of price are they getting for their oil? Seems that costs of shipping the oil is high, and with falling oil prices what is their production / shipping costs? Still, this might be worth a small percentage speculative buy but probably somewhat volatile until politics are settled…

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David
David
November 25, 2014 8:18 pm
Reply to  stephencmyers

Not sure the politics out there will ever be settled.

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quincy adams
Guest
quincy adams
November 24, 2014 8:31 pm

Poor Saddam…he lost his life and his oil, too?

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Myron Martin
Irregular
November 25, 2014 9:46 am

Dehaemer lost creditability with me when he repeatedly cited Petro Matad as one of his top picks without ever disclosing that after a brief run it turned into a money losing dud. Had he advertised that he got his subscribers out near the top it might be a legitimate claim to good guidance. Identifying this new pick was not difficult, but as Travis rightly pointed out the risk is high given the region of operation. I lost interest as soon as I identified the company was London listed. Not suggesting that automatically makes it suspect, only that the cost of acquiring such a highly speculative stock is to difficult and costly for me personally. People with a high risk tolerance may do well IF everything goes right, but I wouldn’t count on the “Hammer” to get you out before something goes very wrong.

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Richard K. Pruett
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Richard K. Pruett
November 26, 2014 7:46 am

A suicide bomber literally blew three buttons off my shirt (while I was still wearing it) during an earlier (misad)venture in Iraq, so that’s probably the last place where I would invest in a project where I’d risk losing my whole shirt. On the other hand, I risked a lot more than my shirt the last time, and I do have a lot of faith in the Kurds. I’ll take a closer look at this and decide if it’s worth a few more buttons.

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Brainbox
Member
Brainbox
November 27, 2014 2:03 pm

This seems to be a classic example of soneone deliberately exagerating the true numbers in order to gain as many mug subscribers as thry can get. I steer well clear of any company operating in any unstable countries such as this. Be prepared to get badly burned!

walter lamphere
Member
walter lamphere
December 9, 2014 1:31 pm

I guess my inquiry was one of many, since you did cover my question very well. With limited financials, I could not afford another blow out, and this looks like Matad again. Thanks Steve.

walter lamphere
Member
walter lamphere
December 9, 2014 1:33 pm

A second or two, if you can, repost about Internet Royalties, how to get into them, without buying stock or options or i s this co called loophole a pure fabrication. Thanks Steve.

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hullevad
July 2, 2015 11:34 am

If a state named Kurdistan is separated from Iraq? Gulf Keystone will be bought by a mayor.
It will eventually happen. One must hope that it takes place before GK runs out of money.
If they can keep on going till the problems with Bagdad gets settled the sky is the limit!
Quite a gamble!

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Bob Paglee
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Bob Paglee
July 2, 2015 12:49 pm

The amount of oil potential in Kurdistan is incredible, and I bought a few hundred shares of Britain’s Gulf Keystone as GKP several years ago. It was going great for awhile, long before Kurdistan’s Erbil was threatened to fall another victim of ISIS beheaders . The brave Kurd militias successfully defended Erbil, but my investment in Kurdistan is currently down 69%. I’m still hanging on because if ISIS is ever defeated and nearby Mosul is retaken by Iraq’s “army”, the value of all that oil could bring back some of my deeply underwater investment. I doubt this will happen soon, however.

There is another similarly super oil deposit nearby in Turkey being produced by Genel Energy, GEGYF. Turkey is far less vulnerable to ISIS terrorism because Turkey is a NATO member, so my larger investment in Britain’s GENL and also GEGYF is only down 37% instead of the 69% in Kurdistan. In the case of Turkey, I imagine this is due to the 40% drop in the world price of oil since my investment.

Turkey has pipeline capability for exporting its oil, and I believe Kurdistan has a new pipeline delivering oil via Turkey. But Turkey’s ruler, Erdogan, is somewhat Islamist and may be seeking greater power.

If the mess in those areas can be fixed and the price of oil ever recovers, those investments can recover for me. But new investors should be wary of the risks.

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