simpson 1 , page-2

Thanks for article Amel. Will post on RAW as well.
A little bit of past news from Australian Business
26th May 2008

"Simpson won't make donkeys of oil hopefuls!
LAST time, John Conolly got whacked by the 1987 share market rout. This time he feels that the oil price is going to get him over the line.

And that line is -- he hopes -- proving that another Cooper Basin lies underneath the Simpson Desert.

In 1980 he listed Sydney Oil Co, which picked up a good deal of exploration ground, including some in the Simpson Desert, particularly the area known as the Pedirka Basin in the lower right-hand corner of the Northern Territory. Sydney Oil was about to drill its first wildcat well when Wall Street laid its 1987 egg, and money dried up.

Now, 21 years later, his Rawson Resources (RAW) is about to test the theory again. In part of the basin, the company is in partnership with John Heugh's Central Petroleum (CTP), another believer in this neck of the woods.

Lakes Oil (LKO), never a company to look a punt in the face, has also pegged some acreage in the Pedirka Basin. Other than that, the Simpson retains its status as being very much in the too-hard basket for most explorers.

Conolly launched Rawson 10 years ago this month, gradually built up a portfolio of permits and floated in 2005. His career includes spells as an academic geologist at US universities. The company also has acreage in the Otway and Surat basins, but it's the Simpson Desert that clearly gets the juices going. The Pedirka has similar geology to the Cooper Basin and the rising oil price makes even a smallish discovery well worth it. As Conolly says, even 5 million barrels represents a lot of money.

Rawson's price has been moving up steadily during May but that may be due as much to the tightness of the register as to the growing interest in Rawson's emerging story.

The biggest shareholder is NSW property developer and ALP donor Duncan Hardie (with 21.5 per cent), while Conolly holds 10 per cent and fellow director John Doughty 7.7 per cent.

Central Petroleum said on Friday it had mobilised a rig to start drilling at the joint venture property. Central said reassessment of seismic of what it calls the Hector Trend in the Pedirka showed the potential for 2 billion barrels of undiscovered oil. "

Cheers guys and a GOOD friday is a coming>