potential buyers outweigh sellers, page-16

From herald sun

CLIVE Palmer's threatening presence on the Central Petroleum share register has been steadily diminishing as he moves on to other things after a failed attempt to grab control of the company.

That hasn't done the share price any favours but it does provide a good opportunity to grab an interest in a massive suite of leases and a couple of farm out deals with oil and gas majors Santos and Total on about 30 per cent of its land.

The two deals were announced by chief executive Richard Cottee fairly quickly after he got the top job and were important because they allow some significant and expensive exploration of the Amadeus, Southern Georgina and Perdika Basins without giving up all of the upside while Central can concentrate on advancing its many other leases.

The best of those is the promising oil play Surprise. Last week Central released test results that showed the oil column was thicker than previously thought, shortening the development timeframe and improving the economics of the project.

Richard Cottee has a proven ability to do deals and with bucketloads of exploration potential for conventional and unconventional oil and gas, Central Petroleum is a speculative buy.