pre open, page-7

re: clayton's announcement What???
Read release again.
There are 2 points here.
1) Great Artesian Oil and Gas Limited (“Great Artesian”), as operator of the Smegsy Block Joint Venture, wishes to advise that the Joint Venture will apply for a Petroleum Production Licence (PPL) encompassing the Smegsy-1 new field gas discovery made during 2004.
AND****************
2)and a contract has been signed with Santos Limited for Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) of the tie-in pipeline.

Do we think that this is being done for nothing?
I would shudder if Santos allowed its staff to mess around signing contracts for the sake of it!

It makes more sense that this is dragging out because GOG realises the importance of this first up pricing. As such they MUST hold out to get decent pricing that will dictate their future.
Santos will want/ need the gas, they realise they are better putting their own cash into significantly bigger projects.