THE beleaguered oil producer Gulf Keystone has hired a Conservative MP to help it strengthen relations with the government of Kurdistan.
Nadhim Zahawi, the former chief executive of YouGov who stepped down from the market research agency in 2010 when he was elected as MP for Stratford-upon-Avon, is understood to have agreed to be a part-time, paid adviser to the company. He will not join the board of directors.
Gulf Keystone’s shares have plunged 70% in the past year because of the drop in the oil price, management upheaval, and concerns over its huge debts. The company’s future has been further clouded by more than $260m (£165m) owed to it by the Kurdish government for oil sales.
The Kurds have been unable to pay Gulf Keystone and other western producers because of a dispute with the federal government in Iraq, which has refused to release funds. The appointment of Zahawi, an Iraqi Kurd who chaired an all-party group on Kurdistan in the last parliament, could bolster Gulf Keystone’s relationship with the government.
In June the Kurdish government began exporting all its oil directly through a new pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, bypassing Baghdad for the first time. Last week it said that from September it would “begin payments to the exporting oil companies”.
Advertisement
Gulf Keystone will reveal its first-half results on Thursday, the first under Jon Ferrier, who became the third chief executive in the past year when he was appointed in June.