why interested in meo?

The current general volatilty seems to make the market quite susceptible at the moment, so I can accept the action may turn out to simply be pumping for distribution.

Of course, I'd rather think not, because I was buying today.

For one thing, a run with this volume gathers its own momentum and MEO hasn't exactly broken into some ludicrous blue-sky area yet by flirting with 10 cents today, has it?

MEO SP spent all of 2007 over 50 cents, with half of it over $1, but more importantly, it reached above 30 cents as recently as January 2009 so, despite the tremendous volume today, it is hardly entering "uncharted" territory, whatever disparate views are held about current "value".

Primarily I mainly like the fact MEO says it has some reasonably good prospects offshore in the NWS project area, near the Rankin Trend area, which is a region already justly famous for containing at least several massive gas fields.

Companies with potential coal seam gas resources are being bought onshore for great prices, but it is only offshore where truly gigantic oil and gas fields are brought into production. There will never be anything of the same magnitude onshore in Australia.

For the reason of sheer prospective field size alone, and the fact the area remains under-explored, anyone doing serious seismic geological data generation in that region and producing promising results will get farm-in support.

If the MEO data is actually any good, support should be even easier to get - presumably, modern surveying techniques provide better data than what was available thirty years ago when some of today's producing monsters were discovered.

China through CNOOC entered into huge offtake agreements with the major petroleum companies who are part of the NWS project joint venture and those companies are spending billions more on their project. It would not unduly surprise me to see a Chinese company interested in securing rights to a part of this highly prospective area.

When you contract for supply of masive amounts of gas over decades from current operators, surely it must cross your mind to get a slice of the production action yourself?

Anyway, this "China" comment is quite arbitrary and made by every mining poster for every company because they seem to buying everything at the moment and future energy security is high on every country's list.

Whatever the driver today and obviously momentum took hold at some point, the potential reward in the MEO offshore exploration permit area in NWS is what primarily interests me. The prospect of a farm-in is a factor in driving up the volume and the SP.

Having the exploration rights and the ability to undertake meangingful exploration in that area is what I perceive as providing the "value" in MEO.

That "value" should continue until more data is obtained and they drill a few holes, after which the perceived value proposition, and the SP will either fade or "flare".

The levelthe SP reaches in the meantime may be affected by who farms-in, which I understand is pending, and what level of activity results.