AWE's spin in the first announcement was what got the market...

AWE's spin in the first announcement was what got the market excited and saw a great run for Arc and Roc in particular.

I questioned both Streitberg and Doran on the differences in their reporting over the first announcement...

here's what they said;

Doran : "As you would know, various companies state different things at whatever stage a well is at. That is their prerogative. In that sense, they can say what they like. I can, of course, only speak for ROC. As far as we were concerned, we stated what we believe – at the time - is material and firm. That is what our shareholders require/expect. We don’t consider oil shows, in themselves, to be material – and often they are not, particularly when it is an appraisal well following up an oil discovery. If we ever work out a way of putting oil shows into a barrel and selling them collectively for a US$100 we will stick to that view. That is not to say that any other party’s statement is wrong – it just reflects different perceptions. . When we have further information on Dunsborough-2 we will apply the same material-firm principle."

and more from Doran : "All the JV get the same data from the operator – i.e ROC in this case. As announced today, the oil shows were in the cores so there was never any doubt they were real. What nobody can be 100% sure of until the logs are run is whether they signify residual/un-producible or producible oil. As I said in the previous email the former are not much use to anyone. We too like max info but only if it clarifies, not confuses."

Streitberg : "Awe appear to have made an assumption based on coring rate and shows, very dangerous. When we have seen the core we will know."

more : "Need logs and pressure data but could be very significant – As ever we need to see all the technical data and have been bitten before by not seeing all the data before we make statements but so far so good – at last!"

Then the positive ROC announcement on the 28th:
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Roc Oil (WA) Pty Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of ROC, advises that, since its last Stock Exchange Release on 26 March 2008, the Dunsborough-2 appraisal well in WA-286-P, in the offshore Perth Basin, Western Australia, has recovered a second core to surface. Both 24 metre cores cut during the last three days had 100% recovery and good oil shows throughout the 48.6 metre total cored interval from 1,515 to 1,563.5 mBRT.

As at 0600 hours on 28 March 2008 (local time), the current operation at Dunsborough-2 was recovering Core No 3 in an effort to define the oil water contact.
At top reservoir level Dunsborough-2 is 47 metres down structure from Dunsborough -1, which is 1.6 kilometres to the north and from which light (39o API) oil was recovered. The top of the cored interval in Dunsborough-2 is two metres below the top of the reservoir which was encountered 25 metres high to prognosis.

Dunsborough-2 is scheduled to reach the proposed Total Depth of approximately 1,680 mBRT during the next several days.
Subject to completing the coring programme, drilling to Total Depth and running a full suite of logs, including wireline sampling, this latest well appears to point to a potentially significant gross hydrocarbon column both at the Dunsborough-2 well and for the field as a whole.
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I guess we can see here that Eric in particular was always cautious, and this reflects in their reporting.

Roc started out conservative and then turned it up a bit as they progressed.

One would think that ROC should have waited for full Logging suite to be complete, rather than todays "initial" logging ann?

When reading the announcement from the 28th, you can't completely blame them though i guess, the words "appear" and "potentially" aren't definitive.