I know how you feel thrifty...I feel a bit like serial ramper...

I know how you feel thrifty...I feel a bit like serial ramper too...lol. Im just very excited about the near term potential of this Company!!!
Articles like this one in the West Australian Newspaper today just add to the excitement too.

Gas royalty cut to get supplies
24th July 2009, 6:00 WST

The State Government will halve the usual royalty rate for massive onshore gas fields close to Perth to push them towards development.

The fields, many of which are inland from Jurien Bay, have the potential to supply WA’s needs for decades.

Resources Minister Norman Moore said yesterday the royalties rate for the value of gas taken from all “tight” fields in the State would be cut from 10 per cent to 5 per cent.

Unlike conventional gas prospects off WA’s far north coast, the fields require drilling hundreds of wells to tap the “tightly” held gas and so are more expensive to develop.

But the benefit is that most of the State’s known supplies are as little as 250km from Perth and close to the Dampier to Bunbury pipeline, which meets the Government’s desire to diversify WA’s gas supplies after the Varanus Island explosion last year that caused widespread disruption to businesses.

Until now, the fields, some discovered in the 1970s, have been dormant because of low gas prices and the costly extraction but that changed as demand for energy soared.

“The tight gas industry is in its very early stages and the State Government needs to remove hurdles and encourage investment in this area whenever it can,” Mr Moore said.

“Whereas an offshore petroleum producer may drill 10 to 20 wells, a tight gas producer needs to drill 200 to 300 wells to maintain production levels.”
He said the Perth Basin, where many of the fields were located, could hold up to 12 trillion cubic feet of gas, enough for WA’s domestic needs for up to 30 years.

At least three companies are drilling for tight gas in the region, including Latent Petroleum, which is 65 per cent owned by aluminium giant Alcoa.

Latent managing director Stephen Keenihan said the announcement would help the commercial viability of its Warro field, which would deliver surplus gas to domestic industry after supplying Alcoa’s share.

He said that though it was working to separate high levels of water from the gas, he was confident this could be overcome. If so, the company and its partners would spend close to $500 million by 2014 to bring online the project, which is about half the size of Apache’s Varanus plant.

It already has approval to build a line to connect to the Dampier to Bunbury pipeline, 35km away, and is seeking environmental approval for limited clearing of vegetation for its drilling program.

The gas is “clean” enough with small modifications to pipe straight into the State’s network.

Legislative changes will be required to alter the royalty rate.

PETER KERR