From my experience with farmin option agreements, although...

From my experience with farmin option agreements, although legally on face value, PCL may be able to terminate the Woodside farmin option, they wont. Woodside have to terminate the option agreement or get some one else to take over the option.
If this were to happen, then the party taking over the option would then of course drill a well.

If PCL were to terminate the option, then any incoming farminee would be very wary of farming in, because if the new farminee were to make a major cenomanian - mopane look alike oil discovery, then I could see serious litigation from Woodside and their team of lawyers arguing on some legal technicality that the option was illegally terminated. Greed is a very powerful emotion as we have often seen in life!

Of course if the new farminee drilled a dry hole/sub commercial reservoir, then you wouldn't hear a peep from Woodside and saying behind closed doors ' we dodged a bullet there!"

So the ball is in Woodside's court as to whether they exercise their option to drill or not.

I am still of the view that Woodside will exercise the option to drill, for if Woodside withdraw from PEL 87 and a new farminee comes in and drills a major oil discovery, then there will be some serious questions asked of the board by Woodside shareholders! Like 'Why did Woodside board walk away from a major oil discovery in the hottest offshore basin, when it would have only cost Woodside US$50-70 million to drill a well? Not a lot of money in the scheme of things with recent billion dollar acquisitions in the US"
Woodside might respond "we have changed the company's direction and now moving away from risky exploration, especially in Africa, after the Senegal experience and now focusing on lower commercial risk downstream activities in low sovereign risk areas like the US".

The new burst of drilling activity with four rigs as posted by Coeus starting late October/early November 2024, and likely to be very successful, brings more pressure on the Woodside board to bite the bullet and drill and not walk away from PEL 87.

The above is all pure speculation on my part,

In the meantime PCL shareholders stay frustrated and have to wait for the next announcement /action from Woodside on PEL 87.

I am a shareholder in PCL and Sintana Energy.

Risk in everything as we know and beware the Chaney effect "the unknown unknown'