Hey T4P,First of all congratulations on taking my mention of ESG...

Hey T4P,

First of all congratulations on taking my mention of ESG totally out of context. The mention of the 17Tcf was in response to others comparing estimates of gas in place to 2P reserves which is clearly going to lead to tears. But if you do want to go down that path, what makes MPO’s independently assessed reserves of 1.4Tcf any better than the ESG’s estimates? To save you a bit of research here is a quote from the ESG website:

“Gastar has reported (August 30, 2000) an independent reserves assessment of 8.7 TCF (8,700 PJ) of Possible coal seam gas reserves and 17 TCF (17,000 PJ) of gas-in-place within PEL 238.”

Just while you’ve got that quote there be sure to notice the distinction between gas in place and reserves. The figures that Fortune have released are “estimated gas in place” figures, which you seem to be have upgraded for them with quotes like:

“with 1.4tcf independently assessed reserves, equating to some 300pj net to MPO”

The reason that I even mentioned the BHP guys is because people were talking about them as if they could walk on water and were going to have the MPO share price at $1 in no time. When I had a look at what they achieved at BHP I was far from impressed. There is some good experience there yes, but the projects that they ran were average at best.

As for your comparisons with AOE I think that I would pay 17 times more for a company that is currently producing 15% of Queensland’s gas and who will soon move to 25%. This compared with MPO’s QLD assets which appear to be running at a loss. Sure MPO’s production rates might improve, but they have already been trying to improve rates and they continue to get worse.

Just before people have a go at me for the large ESG figures that are posted here, I never expect ESG to produce anywhere near the 17Tcf or even the 8.7Tcf mentioned above. They are purely there so that people don’t get too excited by large figures in MPO announcements. The key is how much of these reserves can be produced, how much is it going to cost and when is it going to happen.

From my look through many of the posts on the MPO board there appears to be many who have very little knowledge of the CSM industry and in several cases even a total lack of stock market knowledge. These people are often easily guided and big figures excite them, but for their own sake I hope that they also pay attention to alternative opinions. With that being said I’m not saying that MPO’s share price will not rise in the future, just that my opinion is that it is over priced at this moment in time.

Cheers,

Recko1.