Gulf Keystone in Preliminary Sale Talks

Oil producer Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd , battered by a slump in oil prices, said it was in talks with a number of parties about a possible sale of the company or some asset transactions.

Gulf Keystone's stock rose as much as 60.7 percent and was the top percentage gainer on the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

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

Gulf Keystone and its partner, Hungarian oil group MOL Plc , earlier this month suspended all trucked exports of crude from the Shaikan oilfield in Northern Iraq until they received steady payments for exports.

The Kurdish government owes the region's oil companies months' worth of oil export payments. It has been catching up on such outlays since Iraq's central government reinstated budget allocations to the autonomous authority late last year.

Gulf Keystone, which has a market value of about 317 million pounds ($492 million), said its cash balance stood at $69.3 million as of Wednesday.

The company said it expected a payment of $20.8 million shortly related to crude oil sales from the Shaikan block.

Shares of Gulf Keystone were up 55 percent at 55.57 pence at 1022 GMT.

Reporting by Esha Vaish and Mamidipudi Soumithri