Exploration costs outside of the Oyong project are budgeted at $3 million. Most is earmarked for further seismic and drilling activity on a number of prospects in the Sampang PSC (production sharing contract) area in which the Oyong field is located.
"We're shooting (seismic over) three prospects in the east of the block that have potential to be Oyong-type discoveries -- that sort of volumetric potential -- and we're also shooting quite an exciting prospect in the west of the block."
It is a prospect Coppin has had on his leads map for some time, a possible 2 trillion cubic feet structure in 20m of water 20km from Surabaya. With similar rock age and other characteristics to sizable oil and gas discoveries made by Esso in the nearby Selo TAC (technical assistance contract) area, west of the Indonesia city, it could be a company maker for the Melbourne company.
"If the seismic does shoot out we will drill it this year," Coppin said.
What also may have an impact on Cue is the PNG-QLD pipeline, which has died a thousand deaths to date but still is threatening to become reality. Cue has around 200bcf of gas net from existing reserves, located only kilometres from the planned pipeline route.
Closer to reality, even though the discovery is only months old -- is the Bilip well in PPL 190. This well yielded a gross 30m oil column with initial test flows of 2000bopd.
Coppin attributed the recent Cue success to a refocusing towards the oilfield and towards core business.
"We did have some problems in the past but that was resolved in mid-2001and the new board reaffirmed its oil and gas focus."
The company maintains a listing on the New Zealand stock exchange, and has the Todd Group as its major shareholder with Todd's Richard Tweedie as Cue's chairman. Todd exploration manager, Ken Hoolihan, is also on the board which in effect gives the private New Zealand group a surrogate exposure to Indonesia.
However, Coppin doesn't see much activity for Cue in New Zealand at this time.
"We continue to look at New Zealand but have no firm plans,” he said. “We’re looking for opportunities in Australia more than anything else. There are more opportunities in Indonesia but the share market doesn’t give much credit for that.”
