Ann: MAY: Beehive (WA-488-P) Agreement with Total and Santos, page-14

All good commentary, but the point(s) I'm making are ...

STO in its strategy presentation (slide 11 in '16 and 5 in '17) described its strategy as

"Transform - focus on 5 core natural gas assets"
"Build - identify additional gas supply to drive value from 5 core long life natural gas assets"
"Develop -  find and unlock 6th core natural gas asset" with the difference in 2017 being they dropped the "6th core natural gas asset" in favor of simply identify new high value target.

OK - & this a farmin is oil (albeit as the maps suggest in the middle of gas plays - but then that's also true to the NW of the basin also). So it is a (subtle) change to their "disciplined focused strategy". There is even a slide (51) on exploration (2016) and then slides (62/63) in 2017. But its gas focused - even in the Petrel Sub-basin where this farmin is.

Therefore if STO is really chasing oil then it is a change in strategy which was confirmed only as recently as Nov'17. And of course there is Narrabri gas asset in the core as well.


While this farmin looks good on the $value being risked (cheap 3D and drill relative to size of reward in the potential discovery) very little in the way of why this prospect in comparison to others. And then of course who wouldn't want to farmin with the old MEO - perhaps overdue for a big win there.