be warned!, page-17

share trading 101 Right you guys, I turn my back for 1 minute and all hell breaks loose. Listen up.

1. Miningnut is correct. You take the current capitalised cost on the balance sheet and add to that the money spent this year and that equals the total write off. Basic accounting 101.

2. If the decision to flag the project away is known before the half year accounts are published, then you write it off in those accounts, no question. No debate, it is written off and gone. Reporting 101.

3. A 'profits warning' is when a company comes out and says profits are going to be lower and it surprises the market and the shares get hammered. However this China write off situation was flagged weeks ago, so it is hardly a surprise. THE VERY FACT THAT WE ARE DISCUSSING IT HERE MEANS THAT THE LOWER FIRST 6 MONTHS PROFIT IS HARDLY GOING TO BE A SURPRISE!!! Common sense 101.

4. All this debate above is already built into the price. It may go down a little, but the real price moving information will be the progress/commencement of the Vermillion platform and esp the flow rate per day. If it is less than 20mcf a day, market may be disappointed. Efficient market 101.

5. What I want to see is the platform under way and in production, so that at the current prices the payback on the total exploring and platform production can be recovered in 6 mths or so. What the real disaster could be would be for gas prices to fall away after PSA has spent all that money getting the platform built etc. Reality 101.

6. Anyone out there who is worried needs to do the maths on the Vermillion production at 20mcf a day. Maths 101.

7. Finally, I enjoyed doing this post. It would have to be classified as............................................................................................................................................................ COMMON SENSE 101