Woodside produced a billion dollar profit, upped its estimations of its world class Tiof oil discovery and found way more hydrocarbons last year than it produced but what did the market act on?

And Santos? Record revenue ($1.5bn), recent world-class oil discoveries in Indonesia, 121% reserves replacement and what did the market act on?

In both case concerns over reserves drove initial big sell offs, with Santos suffering a bigger drop yesterday than when its Moomba gas plant blew up on New Year’s Day in 2004.

While Santos said it had actually achieved 121% reserves replacement, the market saw only that its estimations of the Mutineer-Exeter oilfield were lower than first thought and would impact medium term earnings.

Ignored was the fact Santos was fast tracking the project to bring that revenue stream on faster than the market had anticipated - it was there was less pie to eat, despite it was going to be dished up earlier.

Similarly Woodside was sold off from $21.85 to $21.11 when it said that its total reserves picture had dropped 29 million barrels of oil equivalent from the previous year.

That drop was not however caused by greedy managers correcting overinflated exploration results as in the Shell case – Woodside actually commercialised a portion of some of its projects and in reality put the cash in its bank it otherwise would have had to wait years for.

Forget the reduced capital expenditure obligations it achieved, forget the blue chip clients it brought some to its table and forget its billion dollar profit – the thought screaming in investor’s minds was “SELL - ARE THEY DOING A SHELL?”

Quite clearly, the Royal Dutch Shell reserves debacle that has now raged for more than two years has focused investors’ thinking towards nothing more than reserves. And clearly, the ripples have spread to the Antipodes.

Remember when cash was king? No longer obviously, in the light of the billion dollar performances.

With today’s news that competing Shell LNG projects denied the North West Shelf a key KOGAS LNG supply contract, in the context of Shell’s unsuccessful bid for complete control of Woodside, one also with hindsight has to look at what a Woodside reserves figure might have been with if Shell had achieved its takeover aims and had supplanted Woodside’s culture with that of Shell’s.

Best one draws one’s own conclusions but the word downgrade springs to mind … three or four times. Executive turnover would probably have been expedited as per the fallout from the Hague.

Woodside also are aware of what may have been, it would seem, reading from the last paragraph in yesterday’s report highlights: “Reserves governance and assurance processes were extensively reviewed and further strengthened. About 90% of the company’s proved reserves have been externally verified within the last four years.”

The good news is that the knee jerk reaction on the ASX has been corrected today with a full digestion of the two companies’ fortunes. WPL is back to $21.84 and STO is back to $9.