You might recall that the monkey board incident occurred in the December quarter of 2010. It was going to be all good. A snack in fact. Just a matter of getting a different rig back to re-enter Surprise.
The months January - July of 2011 were electric with tension and anticipation regarding when we were going to re-enter Surprise and tidy matters up.
Eventually I cracked in August 2011 and sent JH a reprimand by e-mail. I said he should stop releasing endless good news stories, engage a rig and "just do it". That is when he phoned me and told me that his problem was the high cost of mobilising a rig from a distant location to the Kintore area (which is a very distant location). He mentioned the figure of $4,000,000.
Finally toward the end of 2011 a rig was procured and Surprise was re-entered.
The QAR to 30 Dec 2011 shows expenditure for exploration was $4,122,000. The QAR to 31 March 2012 records exploration expenditure of $9,107,000.
Re-entry of Surprise plus assorted exploration matters obviously cost $13,229,000. I have no difficulty believing that $4m of that was to get the rig to site (400 km west of Alice Springs on a sub-standard desert track). Even if the mobilisation figure was less we still spent $13m on one well.
My point is we don't have that sort of money at present so I am hanging out for a joint venture or farm-in.
CTP Price at posting:
36.5¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
