O&G,Dukas is frustrating as we were meant to be (potentially)...

O&G,

Dukas is frustrating as we were meant to be (potentially) sniffing the funny gas mid-June.

I don't agree with your other statements:
- Shareprice 13 cents
- Shareprice 10 cents
Well, the current share price is 14.5 cents which means it has made a return of over 10% in less than a year and 45% in less than 3 years. Obviously there's a lot of volatility but on the face of it, it's actually performed quite well relative to the market - better than the ASX 300 over both these periods.

A number of things haven't turned out as "promised" and for the novice investor, it really should be taken as a learning curve that nothing is certain in the O&G game:

- WM26 disappointment
- Palm Valley Reserves downgrade
- Plant upgrade cost overruns
- Pipeline tariffs higher than expected

These four events above are worth more than the value of the company. And yet the shareprice has still on average tracked higher than before these activities took place... who knows, maybe we will have a few more things go our way in the future. Were they managements fault? WM26 and PV, no. Plant upgrade cost overruns and pipeline tariffs could be argued yes. Richard's head looked to roll because of these....

I think CTP have the right strategy unfolding. They are targeting their underexplored acreage now that they have commissioned the NGP - to explore these basins before tying into the NGP would be value destructive on multiple levels, including:

- Any farmout would be on less advantage terms
- Burden on cash reserves (virtually Nil headroom over the last year). I don't believe people understand how little headroom we had over the last year...
- It would have distracted management from commissioning into the NGP and put this at risk.

I have a fair portion of my portfolio in CTP but if you're uncomfortable with this, it's best to slam a lot into index funds and not worry about it. Oil and gas has proven it has got a lot riskier over the last few years in both commodity price volatility and investor sentiment towards "dirty companies" - they're starting to go the way of coal companies by public perception (which is wrong IMO).

I thought the quarterly, minus the Dukas delay was actually quite good. I'm excited for the exploration portfolio review....and hopefully draw someone in to fund some exciting prospects.