Damn good article, but most from a hardrock perspective. Sorry if this is a bit disjointed.
Oil projects should be split into two groups ; those a company can conceivably afford to develop, and those that they can't.
The first category shouldnt be treated as "exploration companies" in the way the article suggest. The second one, not so much, because oil (or gas in the onshore US or the GoM) can throw off enough cash quickly enough to fund development, in a way that a hard rock project just cant.
As an example, look at Stuart Petroleum. They found some small discoveries, got cash positive, developed them and are now thinking about a diesel plant.
Compare this to, say, a copper junior that found probably a developed $100m worth of copper - it's a lot harder to get cheap cash flow from, and then develop using that cash flow.
For a company in the second position, look at NXS, playing in gas offshore. Because they need to pay all the money up front for the developmnent, they needed bigger partners to prove and develop Long Tom, even after the initial gas discovery.
