Time to bring Democracy to Australia, boys

[Al B. Sure!]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/trillion-shale-oil-find-surrounding-coober-pedy-can-fuel-australia/story-e6frg6n6-1226560401043

SOUTH Australia is sitting on oil potentially worth more than $20 trillion, independent reports claim - enough to turn Australia into a self-sufficient fuel producer.

Brisbane company Linc Energy yesterday released two reports, based on drilling and seismic exploration, estimating the amount of oil in the as yet untapped Arckaringa Basin surrounding Coober Pedy ranging from 3.5 billion to 233 billion barrels of oil.

[MRT144]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1226560401043

Lmao, that range is hilarious.

[Aeson]

My land has from 1/96th to a gazzilion barrels of oil.

[Alexander's Horse]

We have the advantage of owning a tenth of the earth's surface if you count our maritime EEZ.

The buzz in Australia is the company somewhat over-hyped their announcement - they are trying to raise capital.

[Dinner]

They'll be lucky if even 10% of it is recoverable over the next half century. Still even if only a tiny fraction of the find is recoverable at competitive prices it still means a big increase in total Australian production which will help replace imported oil as well as provide yet another (two if we consider natural gas) to add to Australia's minerals boom. One of Australia's best long term advantages (besides being a stable democracy with the strong rule of law) is that it has a large territory (almost as large as the lower 48 states in the US) but a tiny population of just ~20 million. That means the per person share of minerals production is quite high so even though Australia remains a mostly primary economy the standard of living can be as good as any where on Earth.

Agriculture is much more of a problem for Australia with low nutrient soils due to a lack of geologic activity (very little uplift, little glaciation, etc... so its soils tend to be old, leached of nutrients, and not very productive even with irrigation) and worse is the country's high salt content in soils which make plant growth hard to impossible even with irrigation in most of the country. Climate change is only going to make the country's water problems worse (the country's only major river system is already to salty to drink near it's mouth which has killed most of the native wildlife in the delta) so I see them becoming ever more dependent on minerals production which is fine as long as minerals/raw material prices don't fall. It will be very sensitive to any decrease in commodities prices though.

[Dinner]

BTW currently several left wing blogs and Australian commentators are making fun of some stupid American red necks who said they wanted to move to Australia because the "President" is a white christian male and not a socialist. The funny thing is their Prime Minister, nee President, is an unmarried female atheist who has a live in boyfriend. I'm sure the right wing religious extremists would love that just like they'd love the gun control laws and the fact that Australia has universal government provided health care. Not that our right wing countrymen know anything about Australia or even the states right next door to their rural back woods hide outs so we shouldn't bother them with little things like facts.

[DaShi]

The Chinese will take it all.

[PLATO]

Just wait....China will say that Austrailia was always an island that was part of their territory............

[Dinner]

Don't they always?

[Alexander's Horse]

There is a big scene in Australia for speculative mining shares - the "penny dreadfuls" - you can lose all your money or occasionally make a fortune. They cost a few cents so you can buy like a million shares for very little money.

[Zevico]

I met a director from one such penny dreadful. She was quite frank about it and actually called her company a "penny dreadful." Great marketing eh?

[Dinner]

At least she was honest.

[Alexander's Horse]

If you are interested in this rather arcane world, and I will be in a modest way when I retire, there are a couple of Australian web sites worth looking at.

The first is the Speculator, the gentleman who writes the column is a senior Australian financial journalist who has been putting together a portfolio of speculative Australian stock since 1973, mainly mining stocks, but now also risky stocks like biotech and internet - the nickel boom in the seventies kicked off the column if I recall correctly. Those were crazy days and it all went bust. In 33 out of 36 years he has made money, sometimes a lot. Fun to follow even if you are not investing, also educative. Readers follow the fortunes of the portfolio through the year.

http://www.eurekareport.com.au/article/2012/12/19/small-caps/speculator

The second is an Australian institution called Pierpont, who is mythical rogue investor, the evil genius behind Blue Sky mines - there is even an Australian rock song about Blue Sky mines. The column poked fun at real companies behaving badly through the eyes of Pierpont the rogue company director, who was always looking to make a fast buck and rip off shareholders. Pierpont was outwardly respectable and a pillar of the city. The goings on at Blue Sky mines often mirrored something really going on that couldn't be published. It was a humorous and neat way to name and shame. Our libel laws are quite strict. Again written by a senior journalist, very funny.

This announcement on shale reminds me of a Pierpont column where the company's alcoholic geologist "Bottle" reported to the sharemarket that the company had found grids indicating metal deposits over a vast area as a result of an aerial survey - but the board knew it was really the barbed wire and fenceposts of cattle stations!

http://www.pierpont.com.au/index.htm

Also worth looking at because the journalist who writes Pierpont, Trevor Sykes, and the person interviewing him have clearly had a good lunch, true to Pierpont's spirit, and are a bit drunk.

Pierpont still gives out annual awards which no respectable company or company director wants to get, the 2012 awards:

http://www.pierpont.com.au/article.php?The-Dubious-Distinction-Awards-2012-563

Pip! Pip! Pierpont!