from petroleumnews.net/PREMIUM AS THE moment of truth draws...

from
petroleumnews.net/PREMIUM

AS THE moment of truth draws closer for the Valentine-1 exploration well, the Canning Basin partners are receiving different reactions from the market.

Operator Arc Energy has added 2.1% this week, or 9.2% for the month, for a share price that closed yesterday at $1.43.

This modest growth came despite the company's bullish announcement that drilling results to date from the high-impact well were looking good for the updip Stokes Bay well and the basin's regional prospectivity.

Arc said the results had confirmed a significant hydrocarbon system in the Fitzroy Trough of the greater Canning Basin, as well as reservoir quality sands and high quality shale seals.

But Valentine-1 is still yet to reach its primary objective, which forms a big part of Arc's analysis that this well alone could yield 1 trillion cubic feet of gas plus 200 million barrels of oil.

A discovery of this size would transform all the companies involved, especially junior partners Empire Oil & Gas, First Australian Resources (FAR), Pancontinental Petroleum and Emerald Oil & Gas.

But their share price movements are not necessarily reflecting their growing anticipation as the well nears total depth.

Emerald was the worst performer, losing 15% of ground for the week to close at 26c per share. Despite the drop, EMR was still up 18.6% for the month.

Fellow co-venturer, Pancontinental also dropped 7.5% from its share price to close at 6.4c per share. This comes on top of a 4.5% decrease last week.

Fellow co-venturer Empire was actually up 12% to 2.8c, while the standout achiever was FAR – up 13% to 23.8% for the week.