PJF, also something of comfort is that STX management have vast...

PJF, also something of comfort is that STX management have vast experience with CSG before so would have a very good idea of what they are looking at. DW was the founder of a CSG company that got taken over. Also the head of STX's cooper basin project is ex-santos i believe.
You would think that they have a fair idea about how to read coal seam tech data. The consultants were probably an external overlay appointed to confirm the company's findings.

On the subject of management feeling like they have tried everything and failed so far. The Cooper was always the much bigger prize out of all of their assets. In my experience they have always thought that the EFS was a large project with potentially good economics but that the Cooper was the one that could make this a massive company rather than just a large one.

I am fairly sure the intention was to try and prove up the EFS acreage, sell it on at an increased acreage figure, and use those funds to drive the cooper basin project home. The fact that they saw such deep coals in davenport, Marsden then Le Chiffre and Klebb probably encouraged them to get stuck into it a bit quicker (particularly given EFS was chewing up cash and the dynamics of the eastern aus gas market were changing so fast). Since then the coal focus in the cooper has only grown so it seems they may have been justified in changing the focus quickly.

Yes the acreage value wont be anywhere near what they wanted out of EFS but they have also managed to come up with some pretty innovative ways of building the funding pot to a point where they can achieve the same result in the cooper anyway (or close to it).

IMO