To while away the boredom of monitoring the two steps back - one...

To while away the boredom of monitoring the two steps back - one step forward, two steps forward - one step back market for HDR , I came across the following on the Wessex Oil Exploration website. I don't recall having seen the "very favorable" licence terms and conditions spelled out in this amount of detail before. They are very attractive and probably help to explain why HDR are probably playing hard ball in negotiations with potential farm-in partners. If Matamata was to come in ( or any other of the Billion barrel prospects identified) the cash flow that would be generated boggles the mind.

From Wessex website
Wessex has joined with Northern Petroleum to form Northpet Investments, a company registered in the United Kingdom, and which has a 2.5% interest in the Exclusive Exploration License (EEL) covering the vast offshore area of Guyane (previously French Guiana). The license covers an area of 16 million acres (65,000 sq km), and extends from the twelve-mile territorial waters limit out to the 3,000m water depth contour. The principal licensee is a subsidiary of Hardman Resources, of Perth, Australia, which was awarded the EEL on 1 June 2001. In February 2003, Hardman acquired 7,700 line kilometers of new 2D seismic data, and has confirmed the existence of the very large Matamata Prospect, as well as several other interesting prospects and leads.

In early November, 2005, Hardman started shooting another 2D seismic survey, to be followed by a small 3D survey, in order to firm up several previously mapped leads.

Licence terms and conditions are very favorable with:
· No Production Royalty Payments
· No Surface Rental Payments
· Basic 33.3% Net Profit Tax from Production
· Phase 1 Three (3) Year Work Program of seismic acquisition only, now completed.
. Phase 2 Two (2) Year Work Program of at least one exploratory well

The Matamata Prospect has P10, P50 and P90 estimated recoverable reserves of the order of 500 million, 1.7 billion and 5.6 billion barrels. Mean recoverable reserves are calculated to be of the order of 2.4 billion barrels.

There are several other features on the acreage with potential oil-in-place reserves in the billion