BP have not taken the loss of the Guangdong contract lying down, saying it remained on track to operate two LNG trains by 2005/06 and hoped to win the right to supply another potential Chinese project in the region of Fujian.

The LNG win has rubbed off to more players than Woodside and its North West Shelf partners. The share prices of service players such as Clough, United Group, Mermaid Marine and Fleetwood Corporation received heavy support as the market calculated the economic flow on of the massive win. Reinforcing the sentiment was the Mermaid Clough joint venture's win on Apache's Victoria platform pipeline.

In the same region, the Harriet partners have reported pleasing results from the Simpson appraisal program.

It may pay to avoid Mobil's east coast retail outlets following the announcement that Greenpeace has that company in its sights after it agreed to buy the oil shale product from Southern Pacific Petroleum's highly controversial Queensland project. Shell and BP have previously turned their backs on the product.

A mixed week for Santos also with the news that they had sold gas from their Bentu project in Indonesia to Petronas and Pertamina. It was too late for the battering Santos took after revealing a 35% drop in earnings for the half year.

Picking over old Santos ground this week are Beach and Magellan Petroleum. Their sizable Maslins-1 well - named after an Adelaide nudie beach - kicked off this week.

And finally, the morbid but very active spectator (if you're lucky) sport of wealth destruction lifted a few notches this week, with the guessing centering on whether the massive geophysical contractor PGS will survive for much longer. With its CEO bailing after failing to kick the Veritas merger into touch, and the share price languishing under US40c after being over US$11 a year ago, the human cost will be felt when the loss-making Perth office is closed, with Terrace talk suggesting the end of the month.