Hi Griff5, I don't think there's any wool over eyes. Rather,...

Hi Griff5, I don't think there's any wool over eyes. Rather, there have been reasonable explanations put forward here, as well as those from Euroz and an analyst within the relevant Upstream article:

"It is important to understand the likely nuances of the decision by WDS. They provided guidance of a US$200m exploration budget for this next year at their FY24 Results on 25 Feb'25. The PEL 87 well/the cost of the carry for the farm-out deal would have been ~1/3 of this entire global exploration budget. They would have weighed up the opportunity and its risks on a global portfolio basis and decided not to pursue it."

"One source familiar with Woodside added: "I doubt greatly they had the firepower to take (Namibia) on, especially with everything else going on," adding that a priority was to protect their dividend."

I think it is a case of finite resources desired to be allocated elsewhere. In terms of 'helping us going forward', it is now a matter of attracting a super major to farm in and ideally drill prior to Jan. I don't see this being an issue given our numbers and what's in the direct neighbourhood. Hope that helps.