ok Well I've done a bit of digging, and either my memory is worse than I thought, or the charts available have been doctored (conspiracy theory anyone? ;) )
There seems to be a pretty good correlation between the oil price in $AUD and the petrol price.. There are some oddities in the long term price chart that don't make sense to me for instance in this chart http://www.aaa.asn.au/petrol/crude.pdf why the big difference between us and au prices in Dec 08...
This chart has the long term petrol prices http://www.aaa.asn.au/petrol/ULP.pdf The thing I find odd about this one is I cannot remember petrol prices (non supermarket dicounted prices) dropping below about 1.12 / Litre in Sydney since the massive run up when oil hit nearly $150 / barrel. yet the graph shows it being down to $1.05 / litre... I also don't remember the peak being as bad as it shows... perhaps my view is skewed somewhat by the fact I buy 98 octane fuel which when I first started to buy it was 7c / litre more and is now 17c / litre more than ULP.
Anyway back on topic. Oil prices have been rising, but so has the $AU so in some respects the oil price is remaining constant..
The CSG assets are most valuable if oil prices keep rising and there is high demand for LNG. Oil prices at the moment are still high compared to historical prices (not as high as the peak they reached mid 2009 but still much higher than traditionally, so that bodes well for LNG uptake. VPE being late to market won't necessarily get the benefits though. The report says that there is already oversupply, It is the early birds that make the big bucks, once every man and his dog jumps on the bandwagon what was once lucrative becomes a mugs game... Long term it will becomre more and more valuable but I'm not seeing any short term benefits. just my 2c worth :)
Tony.
VPE Price at posting:
34.5¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
