500klm, 150m and 9.5% organics means what?, page-37

Well Santos are in the thick of it in the tight Cooper plays, and they also did a lot of work on the Amadeus source rocks in the early days, so they definitely see potential.

I do think, though, that they are probably more in it for the tight oil in Ssts rather than the shale - the Surprise-type plays. At least in the short term.

Tight sands like Surprise and Ooraminna are likely to be economic before shales are, because their perms might be 1000 times higher. Obviously the shales benefit from the economy of scale but they are long-term plays. These days, an oil well producing 100 bopd is worth looking at, whereas 20 years ago, it was a P&A job.

That's my feeling on Santos's motives. Tight sands first, shale later. The tight sands are already looking economic, at least for oil. Not so much for gas, of course. But shale is going to require a step change in the Australian O&G industry, particularly in frontier basins like the Amadeus and Georgina.