Is acquiring Quadrant a good idea?, page-38

Overall its a good acquisition given the low cost assets & Safety record.

Basically this acquisition of USD2.15bil adds 220 mmboe of 2P reserves from Western Australia to STO's existing WA portfolio of 2P 111 mmboe, which gives WA reserves parity to STO's 2P QLD reserves base of 331 mmboe as of Dec 2017.

Dont remember STO making any ground breaking conventional gas discoveries in the Cooper Basin this year. So this should provide decent reserves replacement figures to their gross 2P - 848 mmboe.

Furthermore, the acquisition adds sales of 18-19 mmboe/year on top of what STO are currently selling.

Deal will b back dated to the 1st of Jan 2018.  

Quadrant got hammered in 2015 during a low oil price environment like the others, and since then they've recovered generating revenues of A$861.8m in 2016 from 19.7 mmboe & A$1072.6mil in 2017 from 18.3 mmboe.

QE's portfolio for now is gas heavy, ie 2P-23 mmboe oil from Van Gogh, Pyrenees & 197 mmboe gas.

Had it not been for the development of fields like Reindeer & Macedon one wonders what the Domestic gas mkt would have looked like in WA, esp. with the big boys on the NW Shelf keen to sell their LNG overseas.

STO's biggest catch is the recent Dorado Oil discovery for which Kevin & Anthony mentioned in the conf call last nite that they'll b 'happy to write cheques as the certified milestones were achieved & the team was well advanced with selecting appraisal well locations to b drilled next year'.

So the priority should b appraise & convert 2C of 171 mmbbls of Oil to 2P reserves category at FID by 2020.

This, on top of Quadrant's 23 mmbbls at VanGogh, Pyrenees & STO's own 33 mmbbls at Mutineer-Exeter, Fletcher-Finucane (MEFF) cluster should b a welcome addition & a potential game changer b'coz Oil fields in shallow waters (sub-100m) r cheaper to develop & back in the day Apache would stick a platforms/minipod to 'string their pearls' & produce Oil out of Harriet & other smaller fields in the area around Varanus Island. Time for STO to actually develop a large field.