"It's a long way to the top if you want to frac for oil." I'm...

"It's a long way to the top if you want to frac for oil." I'm not sure if it was Albert Einstein or Bon Scott who said that (I always get those 2 mixed up). But the point is what I learning is that patience will be needed with this one but the rewards could be massive. If you have not already stumbled on these 2 links then you should have a read :

http://geology.com/usgs/oil-shale/australia-oil-shale.shtml

http://www.bourseinvestor.com/bi4/pdfnews/default.asp?d=00961717&f=20090618

The first is a now dated independent assessment of the Toolebuc resource and the second is and independent assessment prepared for Exoma before they got going. Much of the geology stuff may go over your head (unless you are a geologist)but one can still gain an understanding of the risks, challenges and huge potential rewards.....

One criticism I have read of EXE on these threads is that they are taking their sweet time about things. But upon reading these links you come to realize that the risks will not be for want of resources but they will be associated with the technical challenges in retrieving them. Like the Bakken formation in North Dakota the Toolebuc formation has been known about for a long time. The old data from one of the links above suggests that the Toolebuc formation holds 1.7 trillion barrels of oil. If all that oil was now in barrels and sold at $80 a barrel and the money used to pay world debt then there would be no world debt....but of course only a fraction will ever be extracted and EXE's lease do not take in the whole Toolebuc although they do cover a very large chunk. The other thing is that this formation is still pretty unexplored so if the experience is the same as the Bakken then those oil in place figures may yet rise drastically. When you understand all of this the comments of Brian Barker about the huge prize for getting the science right suddenly seem a lot more in context.

There was a time, not so long ago, that both the Bakken and Toolebuc were considered uneconomical. But the rules have changed with the new technology and I cannot help but think that the risks have further been reduced since the writing of these documents thanks to advances happening in the US. Add to that some encouraging results from 2011 particularly around Bessies-1 and katherine and we have good reason to be hopeful.

We probably have a long way to go before we can say we have another Bakken on our hands so I don't want to be seen to be talking up Toolebuc too much just yet but if you are ever bored and have some time to kill then go to youtube and type in Bakken. It's pretty exciting what's happening there and the thing I love about the yanks is that they have a well produced video presentation for everything from the Bakken geology right through to a slick presentation on the workers accommodation available. Type Toolebuc into youtube and all you get is one clip of a chinese girl talking in chinese and the only word you can understand is Exoma :)