When deciding between options and heads I first work out the...

When deciding between options and heads I first work out the future share price at which either purchase would be the same value. As more options are acquired (and theoretically more heads) for the same $ then they will be worth more at a higher future share price but this comes at the excess cost of acquisition and then conversion over simply purchasing the heads. Currently with 88EO at .033 and heads at .045 the break-even future share price is .075. Of course there are other factors to consider such as CGT issues.

I have all sorts of spreadsheets for working out various values for shares but sometimes simple methods come up with good rule of thumb guides. Currently 88E have somewhere around 2.5 bill barrels of prospective unconventional resources. Assuming a conservative recoverability factor say 20%. This will give 2C (p50 contingent) of about 500 mill barrels. A recent transaction WPL buying into SNE valued 2C at around $US 2-2.5 / barrel, I know its deep water blah, blah but use similar break-even NPV and oil quality. Use $1 AU = .72 US, % interest 77.5, multiply it all out and we have around 30-35 cents per share. This IMO is very conservative and when all the WPL purchase details are known the purchase price could be higher.

Sounds pretty good but I think we will need more than ICE 2 to attain a 2c resource base, but if it flows well and all other analysis is good then who knows. ICE 2 may well turn out to be the carrot to get the middly to big fish interested.

All that without taking into consideration what to do about the conventional prospects.

IMO, DYOR, Etc HNY