However, the small end of town continues to hold its own with a string of recent discoveries that have developed major new revenue streams for the industry's bread and butter explorers.
The most recent is Amadeus Energy's Rash Barrett No.2 well at Red Creek in Oklahoma, US. The well has only just been completed and production has been stabilised at 60 barrels of oil per day (bopd).
Rash Barrett No.2 is the fourth successful well to be drilled on the Red Creek prospect, in which Amadeus has a 60% working interest and with total gross daily production from the field now around 220bopd, it's all money in the bank.
Amadeus has been joined by an array of junior producers with significant revenue building discoveries this year. Carpathian became the newest producer in the Australian market with success at its Postorna-1 well in the Czech Republic. The well, located in the Czech part of the Vienna Basin, encountered an 11m thick unit of high quality reservoir sands with strong hydrocarbon indications from a vertical depth of 1450m.
The network of stakeholders in the Jingemia wells have also blossomed with the discovery of the 5mmbbl resource. Norwest, Pancontinental and Voyager are enjoying their maiden royalties along with their numerous larger partners.
The Cooper Basin itself has been the resurgent story of the year with a string of significant finds proving that the region is anything but done and buried as most analysts expected.
Most recently the newly listed Cooper Energy combined with Stuart Petroleum in PEL 93 to drill the Worrior-1 well, which now has the potential to be the biggest discovery in the region since the first oil strike in Moomba in 1997.
Small end production also has the benefit of small lead times with the Worrier partners planning for production to begin in late 2003 or early 2004, as opposed to the five year development cycle needed for a project of Gorgon-like proportions.
So as talk of the lack of exploration investment continues, and the government plans its next inquiry into encouraging that investment, the juniors are putting words into actions and proving big is not always better.
