wpl says has made best offer for gas for pluto, page-18

Yep, they would have to b a possible contender IMO.

Lets look at some bare facts here. As of now, technically they r short by about 7tcf out of 19.4tcf gas. Sadly, KT's 7 Tcf didn't materialise as per their pre-drill expectations & Grace's 5.4 Tcf estimates are affected, its not even on their immediate drilling priority & could mean that, either its postponed for 2010 or has been scratched!!

So, IMHO their management would b keen to add more to their LNG footprint by picking up a prime block in the NW-Shelf. They know the drill & r savvy. They also have $228.25m cash & COP as a partner, not to mention their acreage near TSMP & Sunrise, too many commonalities, or not!! So, would b interesting to see where all this ends up. COP may have stretched themselves a bit in the CSG bid with ORG & no LNG sales deals have being formally annc'd yet by them, which is a worry, so I believe they may b looking at entering the hotspot frequented by other heavies like CVX & XOM for now. If Shell could outbid 12 majors for 'Prelude' in 2005, this one is a sitting duck.

Just my view & I could b totally out of the left-field, but one can't ignore the facts, for arguments sake. The level of data analysis that MEO have compiled & put forth seems 2b of good quality. IMO the only risk is CUE & MOG, they need 2b sorted out now. Any major, would want to go solo, esp. with the kind of CAPEX involved in these projects & risk paying out minority stakeholders in the venture, too much of a distraction IMO.

The ratio between the mkt cap of the two is a key factor, when u compare that with MEO's unrisked value, so a 1:5, 1:6 or 1:8 may b an option, IMHO. Have seen couple of farm-out go pear shaped in October '05 & '08, so I hope this time its different & that's perhaps why we see their SP swing a lot.

Anyway that's my view for now, leave the smiles & handshakes for next week when things get all formalised.