Mereenie Stairway & Pacoota P4

Thought I’d start a discussion on the following statement from the most recent quarterly report;

“Large volumes of Contingent Resources have been identified in the Stairway Interburden and Pacoota P4 formations. Operational Programs for the conversion of Stairway and Pacoota P4 Contingent Resources to reserves have been prepared.”

Assume now the drilling program has been prepared, this is what they are hoping to deploy the capital they are seeking for?

In the previous quarterly report (ending Sep-16) a similar sentence was included except at that time the operational programs were being prepared.

In the June-16 report the following was mentioned with regards these formations: “One Stairway completed well was put on an extended production test to ascertain long term deliverability. Upon successful completion of the test opportunities will be identified for dedicated and optimised Stairway production.” Assume that the tests were considered positive.

How big is the prize? In the Mereenie Reserves Upgrade Ann. (dated 14 March 2016) it was noted (CTP share) of 2C was 91PJ, which per Item 8 of the notes appear to be for the subject formations.

Does anyone have any idea how much the now planned Operational Programs will cost?

Perhaps this is what finalized Macquarie’s decision to purchase 50% of Mereenie; if access into our data room firmed up an Operations program which required (say) $20M, that would suggest a $10M further investment would unlock ~$90M in value for them (assuming the program is successful and the forecast margin is $2/GJ).

If this was the case, capital raised by CTP for this purpose would not mean dilution of value, but an increase, similar to the value of QGC shortly after AGL stepped in.

Thoughts?