"In contrast to growing media reports of protests, momentum is seemingly building in Narrabri CSG operations as Santos ramps up drilling, re-starts existing pilots and progresses the construction of new water-processing facilities (which have been at the centre of the protesters' frustrations to date)," MPW said in its analysis of Santos' recent quarterly results.

"We still see the ramp-up to about 100 terajoules per day of Narrabri gas production by 2020 as achievable."

The analysts maintained an outperform rating on Santos but were disappointed with the "unconvincing" unconventional drilling results in the Cooper Basin so far.

MPW also said the Santos-operated Gladstone LNG project was "cutting it fine" in the gas supply stakes because it seemingly needed all of its 2C (best case) resource to convert to reserves, or additional third-party gas deals, to meet the project's contractual commitments.

On Woodside's results, MPW said it had a solid March quarter operationally. It also estimated that Woodside's new Pluto LNG contracts would yield a price of about $US12.4 per million British thermal units - 7% above its previous forecast.

"This view of a higher Pluto price is anecdotally supported by the fact that the foundation customers appear to be taking their contractual minimum volumes as the Pluto price rises," MPW said.

Yet the analysts still cannot view the Western Australian oil and gas producer's lack of growth options favourably.

"Pressure is building to fix Woodside's longer-term outlook," MPW said.

"While Leviathan [gas project in Israel] still looks the most likely near-term contender, with such little value left in the project from a Woodside perspective, [CEO Peter] Coleman may have to choose between low-value growth and the sustainability of yield."

The bank also found Woodside's lacking growth-related expenditure as suggesting that management continued "to struggle to unearth investable opportunities".