3rd Achilles heel?, page-13

@domun's post (http://hotcopper.com.au/posts/17098871/) provides a far more excellent and detailed analysis than my short version here.

3rd "achilles heel" is "rock mechanics" - which combined with porosity and permeability determines our ability (and the cost) to get the black stuff out of the ground (unconventional at least).

The rock mechanics are more about "level of difficulty" though (i.e. how hard is it going to be to frack - and how long will the fracked rock stay 'open' to allow flow) - so very unlikely to actually "kill" the play - they just increase or decrease cost of extraction by a few dollars per barrel.

Worth noting that earlier announcements compared the early observations on our rocks (as well as Great Bear's reported findings) as similar to the Marcellus shale play at Eagle Ford - which would be a very good result for us.

As an aside - I believe that at the exploration stage where we are at, price of oil is not so important right now. Given the decrease in production (rig count) world-wide, and the massive pressure that a low oil price places on the gulf state economies, simple supply and demand suggests that POO will be higher in the not too distant future.

Not investment advice, just my opinion...