Thanks for y'r comments IAM and Ron. Some very interesting...

Thanks for y'r comments IAM and Ron. Some very interesting points u've made here.

There are questions that seem 2b lurking in the background & probably will need answered, esp. when u have 2 minority stakeholders (15%) & 1 majority holder (70%).

I guess there's perhaps some kind of collateral that Albers might b working on!! CUE had WA-360P, till they farmed out 70% to MEO, a few years back, as Operator. Now, with the recent LNG deals from Gorgon, and both WPL-CVX going at each other, mayb GA is realising that his interests needs 2b taken care off as well.

I am of the opinion, that should there b a major involved here, they would want absolute clarity of the terms & perhaps the reason for the delay. However, I take heart from the fact that MEO has already selected its 'PP', so hope to see a closure soon. The next challenge, would b to schedule a drilling program in Q1-2010. I am sure the 'new Operator' will b vary of the 'use it or lose it' policy that minister Martin Ferguson is so ardently barracking about.

For now, we know CUE was 2b free-carried & with MOG jumping in at the last minute, a few other scenarios have emerged. Its a distraction, IMO, to the overall farm-out process that MEO are in & mayb, just mayb, I can't help wondering whether MEO are simply going to take the cash now & walk away & focus on TSMP, or would prefer to hang around with just 20%. I dont see the logic on the later. MEO's CAPEX requirements are about a billion$ for TSMP, so any money they can bank now from Artemis, will save them from tapping the markets.

Should they hang on with 20%, then that means, there will b 4 players & I dont think any major would want too many heads in the board-room. I know I wouldn't.

Also, note farmouts aren't cheap. For example, KAR-COP deal in Oct 2006 was worth A$250m (US$9.6m for seismics + 80% of drilling costs for 2 wells) and MEO have adopted a similar approach. Then, we had the failed NXS-Mitsui farmout for US$255m last Oct. It will b interesting to see how much the final figures are for Artemis. I've used these 2 as an example, its not a walk in the park by any means, esp when there's 2 massive LNG plants, coming up at Pluto & Ashburton by the 2 elephants next-doors.

Should b a very interesting week, who knows what Friday the 13th has in store for us!! And then, there's the AGM on the 18th. Interestingly, KAR also has their AGM on the 12th, so I'd keep my ears on for future direction they'd b taking, given that there's no 7 tcf gas at Kontiki (Conoco confirmed this as a dryhole, in their recent earnings call transcript) & Grace is derisked from 32% POS for its 5.4 tcf b'coz of this result, so its all come down to Poseidon (7tcf) for KAR, in the Browse basin. In this sector, anything is possible. Just when most (myself included) thought Apache was a done deal with WPL, till they moved to the CVX camp!!

Hope to see closure on this farm-out process soon.