Long-treated as a company trapped in its history as a captive of the Adelaide establishment and as a semi-official gas-producing arm of the South Australian Government it is becoming a little clearer each month that Santos is breaking free.
By this time next year Santos's unimpressive past, a time when management refused to explore beyond the Cooper Basin and the reserve replacement ratio had dipped into disaster territory, will be an entry in books written about the history of Australia's oil and gas industry.
Santos, perhaps even to the surprise of the people who work there, will be a truly national oil and gas producer with profits flowing in broadly equal proportion from its LNG developments in PNG, oil and gas from offshore WA, and new-found unconventional gas in beds of shale in the Cooper.
Little of this brilliant future could be seen in last week's profit report, which included an 11% fall in underlying earnings to $251 million for the six months to June 30, or in the 4% fall in production volume to 27.4 million barrels of oil equivalent.
If those were the only measures used to gauge Santos it was a disappointment - which begs the question about the sharp share price rise to a 12-month high on Friday of $14.76. That meant the stock had risen 7% over the first two weeks of August - a country mile better than the 50c share price fall recorded over the same period by arch-rival, Woodside Petroleum.
So, with production volume and profits down The Slug wonders why Santos is seen as the flavour of the month among investors?
The answer, as is often the case when dealing with stock exchange matters, is all about the future because investors are never interested in historic performance. They want to know how much bang they will get for their buck next year, and the year after.
With Santos it seems the good times might not be far away with the chief executive, David Knox, waving a magic wand called "capital management options" in front of the market. If you don't know what that means think dividends and/or share buybacks with either option certain to push the share price higher.
Knox's full comment, after reporting the disappointing historic data of less oil and less money for the June half-year went like this: "These LNG projects are poised to deliver significant shareholder value and it is our intent to review capital management options as we approach PNG LNG production".
Investors loved it. For the first time in decades they could see a new-look Santos, a company that appears to be on the way to doubling its net profit over the next two years.
Profit might have been down in the half-year to June 30, and it might be down a bit in the full year to December 31. However, next year, as production start to flow from LNG production Santos's profit will rise by an estimated 30%, and then up again by another 30% in 2015 to crack the $1 billion mark - and to shower shareholders with progressively higher dividends.
How high can Santos go? Well, from what The Slug has been reading its shares should easily clear the $16 mark, and then set off for the target of $17.70 set by JP Morgan, which has been impressed by the company's steady ramp up in petroleum output and the merging LNG future for the stock.
Citi, another big-name investment bank, goes one better than JP Morgan with a 12-month price tip of $17.90 as the PNG and Gladstone LNG projects are "de-risked" and head into the final stages of construction. This will be just as the Cooper Basin revival gathers speed with strong flows from the latest unconventional (shale) well, the bizarrely-named Gaschnitz, which has been flowing at 2 million cubic feet a day.
What the analysts particularly like about Santos is the spread of income producing assets, a factor that differentiates it from Woodside which remains very dependent on the North West Shelf.
Not only has Santos broken the shackles which once tied it to the Adelaide establishment but it has developed a truly regional appeal that might add a very tasty tang to its share price - a takeover bid from an oil major such as Chevron; or even Woodside as it contemplates a future with limited growth options.
