Your point about Oxy is of immediate interest. People/Market has'nt even tried to join the dots on Paloma at this stage....except Oxy.
The Paloma field area is about 17kms long. Our activity has covered a relatively small zone of about 500 metres (330m between PD-1 and PD-2) and yet the released data to date has been enough for Oxy to go out and get 10 drill permits flanking our lease boundary to the north and the south.
Shale resource is a bit like coal bed methane. If seismic shows a large areal extent and one drill proves commerciality there is then a very high liklihood the commerciality covers the entire area of the geological structure. ie the results from Pd-1/PD-2 could well have major implications for the entire 17km length of Paloma.
Oxy as the largest lease holder will be the major beneficiary, we'd be second and Aera (Shell/Exxon jv) third.
Given what might be at stake and the size of Oxy/Shell/Exxon there could be an aggressive approach by any one of these three parties either as an outright takeover or to purchase our Paloma acreage.
Oxy would be the most likely candidate and have already shown their ability to quickly react to the news flow from Neon.
This story in itself is quite similar to Cove though on a smaller scale.
Interesting times ahead I'd say.
NEN Price at posting:
39.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
