Stammer said Mosaic would continue to develop its substantial lease holdings in Queensland while monitoring any potential development in its present interests in the North West Shelf and Papua New Guinea, PNG newspaper the National reported.

Stammer told the Port Moresby Stock Exchange on Monday that the company’s discovered bankable gas reserves in Queensland have tripled over the last three years.

“Since 2000, our oil, gas and LPG sales have ranged between A$7.5 and A$10.5 million. Based on current work and present commodity prices, we forecast sales between A$14 and A$17 million for 2005,” he said.

The revised figure was based on current oil production and gas sales for the Silver Springs and Churchie gas sales in Queensland.

“We had forecast higher sales for 2006 with the development of another one of our areas in Queensland [Waggamba],” said Dr Stammer.

“Regrettably, a setback with our Whinstanes-1 well in the Waggamba field this month meant we have had to forgo an offer to supply a five-year parcel of gas to CS Energy at the present time.”

Stammer said they hope with added technical work they would be able to offer significant gas from Waggamba.

The company is supplying a contract for 1PJ of gas to CS Energy from the Silver Springs and Waggamba gas field and has a large contract for this year to supply gas contracts to Santos Ltd from the Churchie field.

Outside Queensland, the company holds a 6% interest offshore Western Australia where a 75 million barrel oil target at Hurricane prospect is being currently drilled.

It also has a 28.76% interest in a large undeveloped PNG gas field – Kimu, which has 3P reserves of 1.3 trillion cubic feet). This field is being studied as a possible site for a methanol production operation, the National reported.