In general I agree with the points made and do look at these but not so much depreciation as that is subjective and unless we have the detailed asset balances it is difficult to know what the number is depreciating. The essential thing for me though is forming an opinion on the carrying value in the balance sheet for the assets. For an explorer the wiggle room is massive whereas once stable production established over time the numbers are more relevant and tighter.
We only need to look at the write-offs in the December accounts for many companies to see that the previous depreciation/amortisation numbers may have been understated therefore unless the prior years DD&A numbers consider these write-offs they could be misleading if used in isolation.
I think this is a good discussion point and surprised over the years that more scrutiny of the carrying value's doesn't occur. VH raised this pre December and I expect was not surprised at some of the write downs.
Cheers
SSN Price at posting:
0.8¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
