stars aligning, page-7

Might be this one? a potential $12B resource is mentioned at Tesorillo Spain.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/browse-basin-bodes-85-billion-boom/story-fnciil7d-1226762864952#

Petrel Energy (PRL)

WHILE it might be that big gas is nice, but oil is nicer, there is nothing wrong with being a junior company with a foothold on a potential prospective resource of 3tcf of gas.

That is particularly so if the gasfield in question is onshore and has an underutilised trans-national gas pipeline running past it within a little more than spitting distance.

That is the position that Petrel Energy (PRL) has worked its way in to in southern Spain at its Tesorillo project, with its exposure coming from its current 25 per cent stake in the private US company Schuepbach Energy (SEI), which holds 85 per cent in the covering exploration licences.

Based on analysis of a long-overlooked exploration well called Almarchai drilled in 1956, the resource potential for Tesorillo has been independently certified by US consultancy Netherland Sewell at as much as 3tcf, with a best (median) estimate of 1.2tcf.

Either one points to some serious potential.

Take the best estimate of 1.2tcf, and place it in the high-priced European market for gas, and you are looking at a $US12bn resource.

That the Petrel share price barely moved on the Netherland Sewell certification says that the local market wants to see some confirmation of that potential with some modern-day drilling.

Fair enough, too.

To that end, Petrel is looking for a partner with deeper pockets to drill and test a twin hole to Almarchal-1 next year, as well as stepping out to confirm the bigger upside.

Petrel last traded at 16.5c for a market cap of about $68m.

The real beauty of Tesorillo (Petrel has an option to go to 51 per cent of SEI for $US5.5m) is that it was pretty much considered a secondary asset to Petrel's conventional and non-conventional oil-gas push in Uruguay's Norte Basin, again through SEI.

First-mover advantage in its Uruguay excursion has resulted in Petrel -- through SEI's 100 per cent permit -- securing a huge acreage position alongside the likes of BP, BG, Total and YPF in assessing the potential for the South American nation, which is currently dependent on energy imports, to enjoy the same energy success of the neighbouring Brazil.

Coring work by Petrel has recently confirmed an active hydrocarbon system is present in the virtually previously unexplored basin. Continued encouragement will eventually lead to drilling, and the attention of the big boys of the industry that have followed Petrel in.

It's all kind of reminiscent of what happened in the NSW coal-seam gas boom, and before that, the US CSG and shale boom.

No surprise, then, that Petrel management and the board includes men who were first-movers in those plays as well.