reply comments from christian lange

I am a little reluctant to advertise this email from Christian but noting some of the negative comments on hotcopper, I have decided to advertise his email,which he gave permission for me to do. I asked some questions of him and this is his response.

Dear Graham,

Thanks for your email. I'm about to run off to our board meeting, however thought
I'd quickly pen you a note in reply. Adam Mroz, Neptune's HSEQ Manager is doing a
fabulous job.

STS is an excellent acquisition on many fronts, not least of which is ROV scale and
management expertise. Our intentions are to leverage both of these to build our ROV fleet
substantially over the next few years.

I've taken some time to have a quick read of HC, and note the concerns over NMS not
keeping investors updated. Of course this is a tricky area, as the ASX platform is not
designed to be a marketing tool, however, we do have an obligation to inform investors of
'material' events. I've always taken the view that many companies use the ASX to
pump up their stock, sometimes ahead of themselves, and I have taken the opposite approach,
which is to ensure that all material news, both strategic and/or financial, is released in a
timely manner, however finding the balance is tricky, as we also have confidentiality
clauses within many of our contracts. Additionally the period from 'verbal' award to
contract sign-off can be several months, thus the lag time to announcement varies on this
basis.

Yesterday I mentioned that Neptune is working in some form on all LNG projects in WA, Pluto,
Browse, Ichyths, Julimar, Bay Undan, however with the exception of Pluto, these are quite
small in the grand scheme of things, as most are only at FEED stage, or pre FID (Final
Investment Decision). As these projects ramp up, I would expect the material nature of our
exposure to increase, remember, Neptune only really gets started when the infrastructure
start to 'go in the water', such as Pluto today.

On Neptune's earnings, I will repeat what I have stated from day 1. Neptune's
business model has many moving parts, and thus, earnings will be both positively and
negatively impacted by (apart from general economic and market factors beyond our control);
Weightings to either engineering (low margin) or offshore work (high margin); Project Work
such as the one off Ichyths pipeline route survey, Strategic decisions to accept lower
margins in order to prove the value of a technology or build a long term relationship, and
of course the inevitable delays (weather, etc) or on the upside, emergencies. Over the
long-term, and as we grow, these events will have less impact overall, however until we do
grow to a billion dollar company, and we aim to, we will have to accept the lumpy nature of
our earnings. What I can assure you however, is that we are here to stay, and that I fully
intend to make good on my promise to all stakeholders, to evolve Neptune into one of the
world's leading oilfield service companies.

Thanks again Graham for taking the time to write, and for your continued support. (I'm
fine for you to share this with your HC friends)

Best regards
Christian.