The $100m is in line with what was expected. This would cover...

The $100m is in line with what was expected. This would cover all areas in dispute and isn't necessarily an up-front payment - could be only applicable to production licenses and may be payable over the term of that license. ie. We might not pay anything until we start producing out of Tiof for example and may only pay a proportion of that $100m each year over its say 10 year life. And our contribution is only an avg of 20% of this. Doesn't make sense to be paying such a large amount of money to resolve a dispute about amendments to licenses that aren't even producing any oil yet (Ching is obviously not in concern).

We relinquish 25% every 3 or 4 years anyway - the article doesn't comment on the timeframe for relinquishment. This might speed up the intensity of exploration so that woodside know which areas they can safely relinquish. It also doesn't specify if any recent relinquishments are included in this.

The only thing that I highly doubt is the allocation of $200m per year for environmental risks. If they wiped out the entire fishing industry with an accident it wouldn't be worth that much money. I think maybe there's one too many zero's in that quote - $20m/yr would still be high, but much more reasonable!

We'll see. HDR and WPL staff are all still asleep. And the market depth doesn't give anything away just yet.

Cheers,
Butcherano.