Ever since MEO announced the details of the latest extension to completing the farm-out of Artemis I have had considerable doubts about the status of the selected farminee.
All the big players with experience in exploration and JV agreements in the Carnarvon/Browse/Bonaparte basins such as WPL,Chevron,Apache,COP,Hess etc are all very experienced in farm-in agreements and negotiations. IMO entering into such agreements should not pose any problems or cause any delays for them and the expenses involved in this farm-out would not be significant to such large coys. I doubt that the foreign coys. mentioned would need head office authorisation to commit to Artemis. IMO these types of decisions are best made by executives in the region and any head office involvement would IMO not cause any major delays.
IMO the formality and the process of the meetings mentioned by MEO to be held this week would be unnecessary to these companies. I don't recall this process occurring with RDI on the Zeus farm-in agreement.
This has caused me to have significant doubts about who the preferred farminee is and leads me to suspect that it may not be one of the above. A less experienced player in Aust. may take a more cautious approach to the negotiations and may need more time to finalise the terms or do due diligence. For example, a company like Sinopec who has already had its fingers burnt with the AED JV would be more inclined to go thru such a process and require their govt. approval/sanction and formal meetings.
I still lean toward and prefer WPL but the process as it has developed makes me doubt the outcome.
ANZ
MEO Price at posting:
56.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
