A little further south and Woodside and BHPB look to have found a new Carnarvon Basin oilfield when Stybarrow-2 replicated the 20+ metre oil column found in Stybarrow-1.
ExxonMobil's Cooper Basin asset sale looks to be down to five bidders, though there will be no "Alan Bond" buyer in the short list, according to market talk.
Carpathian and its Canadian partner may be resolving a long running dispute with their Czech counterpart and Amity Oil has appointed 25 year BHPB Howard McLaughlin as its new CEO.
The good news for STOS staff it that quite a few of them will be available to cheer for the All Blacks in the forthcoming World Cup. The bad news is it will be because a fair few of them will be laid off in the coming months in an imminent cost-cutting exercise.
David Bennett may be heading back to court over comments he's made regarding his rival, Greymouth, while the Pohokura partners are displeased at the Commerce Commission's draft decision on gas marketing as an extended production test of the discovery gets underway. Another fuel oil power station gets cranked up as the sector tries to make up the looming power shortage.
The Stuart oil shale project hit record production levels, no doubt pleasing the Australian sounding, American-based Koala Energy, which has just lobbed $34 million at the Queensland development.
Not too far away, EWC has sold off its Barcaldine Power Station and Cheepie-Barcaldine Pipeline to Enertrade to pay some of its Commonwealth Bank debt, which has been hanging around the company's neck for more years than the combined tenure of the current board of directors.
Unfortunately, the less said for Oil Search's week the better, with as one of its key growth prospects, the PNG pipeline, looks to be succumbing to the reality of a lack of firm customers.
In CBM news, the Mungi project has booked firm 2P gas figures, leading junior partner Molopo to claim the first booked commercial CBM reserves for an Australian small capped explorer.
The permanent production facility at Kalrez Energy's Oseil plant in Indonesia (2.5% interest) has come one line, boosting throughput for the minnow as it rebuilds itself after coming close to self-destructing last year.
