Stuart Petroleum (STU)$25m market capitalisation at 12/7/2003...

Stuart Petroleum (STU)

$25m market capitalisation at 12/7/2003 (45c per share)

Latest half yearly report (released March 2003) stated

$2m half-yearly revenue from Acrasia field
$360 000 half-yearly profit
$1.4 million cash

Stuart has licences on the
PEL90 (Acrasia),
PEL93,
PEL102 and
PELA113 fields in the Cooper Basin.

The PEL90 area has the 3-well Acracia field, which according to Stuart management has 1.6 million barrels extractable over the next few years. Stuart owns 75% of this, with Beach in for 25%.

Production started in June 2002
96 162 barrels extracted to 24 December 2002
33 107 barrels extracted in March quarter, due to heavy rains

After installations of pumps and other infrastructure, the Acrasiafield has a current daily pump rate of 1250 barrels/day. This oil is trucked by Santos to their refinery, and paid for at approximatly market rates.

At a Net Present Value of $15 a barrel (Intersuisse says Cooper Basinreserves are worth NPV $20), this field should be worth a minimum NPV of $18m to Stuart.

In 2003, Stuart is planning to drill
Arwon-1 in PEL113 (100% interest)
Warrior-1 in PEL93 (70% interest)
Delta-1 or Kiwi-1 in PEL90 (100% interest reducing to 75%)
Doremius-1 in PEL-102 (farm not yet negotiated)

Between Cooper, Beach and Stuart, the Cooper Basin has seen 4 out of 8exploration wells drilled in 2002-3 become producers (Acrasia, Sellicks, Aldinga and Christies). 3/4 failed wells (Henley, Maslin
and Karbine) all showed oil ... only BPT/GOG's Moana found only water.

Burdett Buckridge Young, in their December 2002 analysis of Beach Petroleum, stated that exploratory wells in the Cooper Basin cost about $1m to drill, and a further $2m to bring into production.

At 25% success you need to drill 3 dry wells, at $1m each, for each success. Each success costs $3m ($1m to drill and $2m to develop). At these probabilities, each successful well in the Cooper Basin costs $6m to drill and develop.

If proven reserves are assumed to be worth $15 per barrel, and they are found in an average quantity of 500 000 barrels, this would make an average successful field worth $7.5 million.

Acracia is estimated at 1.6 million barrels (75% STU, 25% BPT).
Sellicks and Christies are estimated at 0.2-1 million barrels (75 BPT/25 COE)
Aldinga is estimated at 0.6-2.4 million barrels (BPT/MAG)

Personally, I think given current A$ oil prices, the co-operative attitude of Santos and the fact that the Cooper Juniors in general are hitting oil more than half the time they look for it makes this a <>.

And for what it's worth Quentin Cameron's Oil and Gas Review had it as a Buy in June. I dont know about any other analysts reporting on STU.