as optimistic as i am, page-10

Dollars, I sort of agree. There certainly does seem to be time before you absolutely have to get in for fear of missing out however there are two caveats, if I was trying to pick bottom I'd start getting worried about potentially positive Ungani 3D results being dropped and re-entry at Ungani North although I think there are still a good few weeks before having to worry about that and I think mid year next year is calling it way late. Dry season starts in April, with possible results in May I'd expect some kind of uptrend to have started by February.

I suppose the market really didn't like the Apache announcement. I can certainly see there may have been an expectation to look for conventional and Laurel success first and approach the Goldwyer after holding a few more cards and approach the exploration and development of it on more equal terms. I had certainly expected a higher spend just going after the Goldwyer shale on the coast... Some kind of plan that would lead to a trial frac like the pin point work they did in the Laurel. The cores in Cyrene-1 were more exciting than anything NSE has come up with so far. I would suppose it shows Buru either lack confidence in it, don't value it highly or needed it done for operational reasons etc. It seems rushed or the sort of farm out a smaller company would have pulled in (like the $15M OBL almost got out of FMG). I was also expecting the Acacia farm out to be on a per drill basis, not the entire province although the spend there is decent and I wouldn't turn down two free spins of the wheel at 200mmbbl Acacia targets which is about 5 Ungani's EACH to Buru.

But as previously said the Goldwyer is in it's first few baby steps and NSE probably haven't made it look overly attractive to be drilling in it either (although it will be far cheaper on the coast). It's just unproven frontier green fields and we don't seem to have had to patience to work on proving it up. One of the permits needed to be drilled next year so that's fair enough. And maybe they want to unlock some Goldwyer upside before a takeover a year or two down the track rather than it be a freebie undeveloped greenfield thrown into any conventional/Laurel buy out... ie 25% of something reflected in the takeover price is better than 100% of not much. Who knows, clawing at the fog.

Looking at 448 though there appears to be some conventional possibilities from Goldwyer sourced oil in Grant formation traps, I expect this to be a completely valid play in the coastal area. I hold out some hope that there are decent conventional prospects there (ie more than a few lousy mmbbl) and the two drills will be spending $25M on more than just another two Goldwyer cores and retaining one of the leases.