SHAMARAN PETROLEUM $0.23 - Toronto symbol SNM

SHAMARAN PETROLEUM $0.23 (Toronto symbol SNM; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (416-364-8820; www.shamaranpetroleum.com; Shares outstanding: 808.0 million; Market cap: $185.8 million) holds oil and gas exploration interests in Kurdistan. Kurdistan is the most stable area of Iraq, but operating there still entails considerable political risk.

ShaMaran and its partners have struck oil, but they need to do much more drilling to decide whether to bring their new wells into production.

Meanwhile, the company will have to keep making dilutive share issues at today’s low prices to finance further exploration. ShaMaran’s development efforts also face a lot of uncertainty.

ShaMaran is a sell.

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