Ann: Santos Institutional Placement and SPP, page-12

There's nothing magic about 20% other than Santos' market cap looks low compared to the quality of its assets. What nonsense to say they can't repay their debt at the current POO. They are in fact making over $10 per barrel of profit right now, yes it might take a long time but there's no reason this profit can't be used to repay the debt.

However, it's prudent to have some level of debt in a business like this so the goal is not full repayment of the debt, the goal is a balance sheet which is not over-levered. If their assets weren't further impaired at 30 June 2016, hard to see how they would be heading for impairment now given the recent action on oil has been fairly bullish (OPEC, steady if unspectacular global growth)

I'm a fairly new Santos holder (my average buy price is just over $4 and will probably reluctantly stump up the $15k) and I do believe that while the turnaround has been slow, a gentle upward trajectory in the POO is likely over the next few years. And even with Santos's seemingly inept management, their stock price should benefit from this.