Firstly, there is a BIG difference between the value of oil in the ground and the net present value of the field(s) to the company. There are many factors to consider, such as:

• Capital costs;

• operating costs;

• royalties and taxes; and

• discount rate (and the time value of money)

When all of these factors are considered, often for low rate/long life fields the net present value of the field can be as low as 5-20% of the in-ground value of the oil. I suggest this range is likely to apply to Flax/Juniper.

Secondly, it has been 3 years since Juniper was discovered and the only oil that has been recovered to date is 10bbl of oil in the drill string of a test on Juniper-1. Nothing has been attempted since then. The low gas rate also suggests solution drive may be an issue which would impact recoveries. Clearly reservoir quality is an issue here.

A Reservoir Engineer

Perth

And another reader writes:

Regarding Australia's largest onshore oil field, Barrow Island would without doubt be Australia's largest "land-based" oilfield.

However, there is an old forgotten field set in the geographic heartland of our great country, that never receives any attention from anybody, and that field is Mereenie.

I worked on the development of Mereenie for five years and that field had an estimated (at least in my day) 250-300 million barrels in place in a series of stacked sands as oil legs to gas caps.

Peter