Two months ago, QGC commissioned Netherland Sewell & Associates to undertake a reserve review in response to Santos’ $606 million takeover bid.

Following the release of the report that upgraded QGC’s reserves by 64% to 695PJ several weeks ago, the engineers have now filed the second part, which lends economic certification to these figures.

QGC managing director Richard Cottee said as well as confirming the commerciality of the company’s upgraded reserves, the report “puts to rest any doubts expressed by Santos”.

“Santos is an experienced coal seam gas operator which understands fully the procedural delays in our program of drilling and reserves upgrading," Cottee said.

“The Santos takeover offer is timed to take advantage of those delays so it can buy QGC before our drilling program is complete and the full potential of our reserves is confirmed.”

Cottee reiterated that the reserve upgrade was based on data from the first six weeks of a year-long growth acceleration strategy that which aims to increase 2P reserves to 1000PJ.