By John Lee.
[UPDATE: Further to the press release shown below, the Kurdistan Regional Government has issued a statement refuting the company’s claims to have a deal to refine crude oil from Genel Energy‘s Taq Taq oil field.
Genel Energy has also denied any knowledge of, or dealings with, Black Diamond and Rezhwan.
The full text of the KRG statement can be viewed here: https://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2014/04/17/false-claims-made-by-black-diamond-rezhwan/.]
The Black Diamond Oil Company has issued a press release in which it claims to make gross profits of $180,000 per day refining crude oil from the Taq Taq oilfield. The full text of the press release is shown below:
Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdistan region opened the doors to a joint venture refinery operation between Black Diamond Oil Co. and the Rezhwan Co.
The new oil refinery will start refining Taq Taq crude oil next week with 1,500 tons being refined on a daily bases.
It was further decided that both companies had agreed that Black Diamond would increase the daily output of the refinery with a production of 3000 tons per day starting in May 2014.
The refinery near the Kurdish capital Erbil will be operated by the private Kurdish group Rezhwan Co., which will process the crude from purchasing above ground reserves in Taq Taq.
Black Diamond will purchase the crude directly from the Taq Taq field, in central Iraq 50 miles east-southeast of Erbil, is the Kurdistan region’s largest oil producing field, notes operator Genel Energy PLC.
Proved and probable reserves total 607 million BBL of the currently estimated 1.7 billion BBL of oil in place, and the field is delivering 80,000-100,000 b/d, all of it by truck for the moment. Production averaged 75,500 b/d in 2012 compared with 66,000 b/d in 2011.
The TT-22 Taq Taq Deep exploratory well that targets a gross un-risked resource of 250 million BBL of oil equivalent in Jurassic and Triassic reservoirs is due to spud shortly. Projected total depth is 5,400 m. The Jurassic-Triassic interval tested gas from a well drilled in the mid-1970s at Taq Taq.
The Black Diamond Group has been around for a long time. There founder has been very lucky in Sukothai Thailand with the largest oil find in the Queens sirikit Thailand . The fact is I know from doing business with the group they have unlimited financial capabilities. So it would not surprise me that this group would start refining huge amounts of crude while becoming a huge force in Iraq.
It might be worth looking into the legitimacy of the claims made in this press release. Aside from the unorthodox wording of the release, it seems that Mr. Flynn and Black Diamond have been run out Thailand and the Philippines for conducting scams by fielding 'investors' for made up projects. While this page seems less than objective (http://oneworld.org.ph/investor-letter-2/), this video of him asking for money for a venture that never happened seems pretty damning (if not just odd): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU5cHGcpdaI
Sorry Ted--I think you're getting scammed. The MNR just announced that the project doesn't exist. http://www.basnews.com/en/News/Details/MNR-rejects--spurious--claims-of-oil-deal-with-Black-Diamond-Co/17917