Well, there are now more unknowns and the market, in all it’s wisdom, has a certain distaste for those unsavoury items.
However… admittedly there are a lot of ifs in this… but if it all comes together, I believe we will ultimately be better off: If Tom signs up a partner for this year’s Rafa Shallow drilling and if it is as advertised and can be monetised rapidly, then it puts us in a far stronger position to fund more of Rafa MainGame and potentially keep more of it for ourselves. If the reason for the additional work required is as I suspect, because the resource size is a huge improvement on 1TCF and if the Rafa MainGame farm-out process recommences and results in partner selection this year in time to book the rig for the start of 2025 drilling season, then we’ve probably only been pushed back 6-8 months and the size of the deal itself will have gone through the roof.
(and if we either flog Ungani or restart it and drill Mars successfully, that also helps, but not essential.)
So, if you had a crystal ball and told me none of those ifs are ifs and it’s 100% in the bag and you asked me to choose between that and where we were at yesterday with no Rafa Shallow or Ungani Mars and told me we were still signing a partner next month for Rafa Appraisal in Oct/Nov and 1TCF and no more was baked in, I would go for today’s news over the security of yesterday’s world despite the delay. Because the potential as of today is so much greater than it was yesterday. But so are the damn unknowns. All depends on your personal risk/reward threshold I guess.
I do think Tom needs to bring the Rafa Shallows deal to the AGM for his own credibility though. He needs a win. The SA TOs could also bail him out if they sign up so he can float 2H’s boat…
