Cooper Energy are publicity bunnies. They are prepared to go out...

Cooper Energy are publicity bunnies. They are prepared to go out there, plug their stock, hype their discoveries and generally sell themselves.

Stuart Petroleum really, really suck at everything except finding the black stuff. They are really, really good at finding the black stuff.

Now, Stuart's position is 'We'll comment when we get the wireline logs, and until then we aint saying nothing to nobody'.

Therefore, COE gets the buzz, the excitement and so on. Hell, I bet most day traders think Cooper Energy picked where to drill.

OK, here's the skinny.

COE have 25% chunks of 2 reasonable but unimpressive wells (Sellicks and Christies). Last I checked, Sellicks was probably about 1, and Christies is probably about 0.6 mmbo, so thats 0.4 million bbl of reserves, for $8m at a NPV of A$20.

Therefore, before the recent share placements, COE was about fairly valued.

If Worrior is 3mmbo, then thats 1 mmbo for COE, or another A$20m of value ... A$38m.

They now have 72 million shares after the capital raising, so fair value is probably around 45 cents (NPV of A$20 is probably a bit generous. If you held a gun to my head, I'd agree to A$18). They are about a third under fair value, in my view.

Now, Stuart. Stuart have 1.2 mmbo of reserves in Acracia, for $24m of value. Add their 70% of our hypothetical 3 mmbo in Worrior, and thats another 2 mmbo, for another $40m of value. Thats $64m, divided by 60 million shares, or a buck apiece fair value.

They are also about a third undervalued.

Now, Stuart has 100% of Kiwi, so it has more short-term upside than COE does, assuming Kiwi and Eucalyptus are similarly prospective.

But at the moment, it's hard to pick between them.

My money is on Stuart, because I think they are really, really good at finding oil.