oil/gas the crisis looming beyond 2020, page-37

Kahuna,

I think I see a reason for some of our differences.

I'm a small cap specialist - anyone above $200m in market cap, I tend to ignore, as I big stocks have more and better ananlysis than small ones, and therefore I am more likely to have an information advantage nthan for small ones.

Small Australian gas producers tend to have to take fixed-price contracts from consumers or Santos, and these prices include toll charges and so on - thus the $2.50/mcf number.

Big producers - Woodside - can and do get USD demoninated take-or-pay contracts that have escalator contracts.

So, say, a GOG with a theoretical 5 mmcf/day from onshore Cooper wells is in a very different position from a Woodside, as GOG has to take prices, and Woodside can to some extent make them.

Added to this the lack of a spot market for gas in Australia, and small producers can't easily monetise gas, and are more-or-less at the mercy of consumers.

The US is a different story, as there, you can turn even fifty thousand cubic feet a day into money.

For the record, I like Woodies, if just because I like Mauritania a lot.

As far as accounting issues go, I think that accounting standards deal poorly with E+P companies - it's difficult to determine exactly what a field's net revenue is, and reservoir assessment is a black art at the best of times (as an aside, I think the SEC "proved reserves only" approach is the wrong way to go, as it discourages exploration and wildcats, and encourages growth by acquisition).

Ian Whitchurch