Ann: Apache farms-in to coastal and eastern deser, page-13

re: Ann: Apache farms-in to coastal and easte... I was underwhelmed by the $25M myself. It's a less than rigorous assessment of the permits for 50% and it look like only EP 390 needs to be drilled soon. However some of that area is unprospective with the Thangoo high.

I guess when you look at it, they have 4 oil provinces, MC farmed into everything for ~$150M. Apache can farm into half of the provinces for about half of the money. Not of course that you can divide the provinces into equal value like that. Full farm into Acacia would likely take that up to around ~$80M plus 2 appraisal wells which if there is success would take it to a NSEish deal - ~$100M+ spend for 25% retained equity with 4 upfront drills and 2 appraisals. So overall it's not much different to the last two big buy ins.
It just doesn't feel as systematic with the headline $25M for the big chunk of equity and the fact the rest of it hasn't been taken up yet.

Still the idea is to get drills in the ground and it does de-risk 2014 somewhat with another province and another two drills. If they go chasing conventional reservoirs with underlying shale for the two coastal Goldwyer drills I'll be happy, it would mean up to half a dozen conventional drills next year with the Laurel drilling on top. There is oil in the shale in the coastal Goldwyer, it's shallow and it's close to infrastructure. At the very least we should get some positive cores and some kind of plan to move forward in that area. Maybe there is some level of strategery in getting drills into the area in 2014, maybe there is some hope of getting Apache interested in the GNP.

Hope they're good at juggling rigs, so many drills happening next year.