Gulf Keystone soars over 65% on sale speculation

Oil producer Gulf Keystone Petroleum shares soared over 65% after saying it had opened negotiations with a number of parties over a possible sale of assets.

The group, which has operations in Iraqi Kurdistan, said the talks were at a preliminary stage and it had appointed Deutsche Bank and Perella Weinberg Partners as financial advisers.

Earlier in February, the London-listed company and its partner, Hungarian oil group MOL Plc, said all trucked exports of crude from the Shaikan oilfield in Northern Iraq would be suspended until they received payments from the Kurdish government.

Along with other oil companies in the region, Gulf Keystone said the Kurdish authorities owe them months’ worth of oil export payments and added it expected a payment of $20.8m (£13.4m) related to the crude sales from the Shaikan site to be processed shortly.

The Kurdish government has struggled to meet its payment deadlines since Baghdad’s central government reintroduced budget allocations to the local authority in 2014.

As of 25 February the outfit's cash balance stood at $69.3m with another $20.8m set to be credited to its bank accounts shortly, the company said.

Gulf shares were up 67.61% to 59.50p at 11:00 on Wednesday.